‘Storm the Citadel’ invites area students to put their skills to the test and explore STEM activities

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Students from dozens of schools across the tri-county gathered at The Citadel to participate in an annual STEM event focused on bringing awareness to exploration and learning scientific studies.

The Citadel has hosted one of the area’s largest STEM events, “Storm the Citadel,” for over 10 years to promote critical thinking, innovations, and creativity skills through a hands-on approach.

“There are multiple competitions going on. You have the water rockets, the trebuchet, and then inside we have the bridge-building competition and the maze competition, where students have to program Lego robots to accomplish a series of tasks,” said Kevin Skenes, head of The Citadel’s mechanical engineering department.

Participating students said the goal of today’s event was to learn and have fun with friends and family, while others were in the competitive spirit hoping to bring home a trophy after working on their projects for weeks.

“I really like doing bottle rockets. How I feel about this project – I feel really good. I’m glad I’m allowed to be in this program,” said Morgan Kinloch, a St. Andrew’s School of Math and Science student.

“I hope to at least win a trophy and have fun with my friends,” said fellow student Patrick Turner.

Organizers said they hope students learn more about the engineering field from the event and understand you can have fun with science.

“People think of engineering as, you know, boring guys wearing ties underground somewhere, but it’s really not. There’s a lot of fun things we can do, and we want students to get out here, be engineers, have fun, and then hopefully when they grow up, that’s what they’ll decide they want to be,” said Skenes.