The Academy students enjoyed some friendly engineering competition in NJIT’s Makerspace.
When the vessel “King Gizzard” lined up for the final round of NJIT’s STEM Success Academy boat race, the stakes weren’t high in the traditional sense — just a stream of air and a small plastic boat floating on a narrow water track in NJIT’s Makerspace. But what was at play was far bigger: creativity, collaboration and the confidence to think differently.
Josh Rutka, a recent transfer student from Raritan Valley Community College and now a full-time mechanical engineering major at NJIT, drew on his years of experience in FIRST Robotics to help lead his team toward an unconventional design. While nearly every other group engineered sailboats powered by direct wind, Rutka’s…
