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Brown Engineers Gets Grant for STEM Education

2 min read

The National Science Foundation recently awarded a one-year, $225,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant to Brown Engineers LLC of Little Rock to develop a water engineering computer simulation. The simulation will be a STEM education tool for students in grades six through 12.

Spearheading this project for the electrical, mechanical and automation engineering firm is Ben Rainwater, who earned his doctorate in material science and engineering from Georgia Tech University in 2016. He also teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

The idea took root after a roundtable Rainwater attended that was hosted by Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore. Rainwater said he wanted to take into the classroom the engineering expertise from professionals who attended that event.

Most firms don’t have time to delve into STEM education, he said. That’s where the SBIR grant comes in.

The NSF asks for projects that focus on specific topics; one of those was STEM education. So Brown Engineers applied for and received the Phase I grant.

Phase I grants support market research, Rainwater said. The firm’s grant will cover costs associated with its staff speaking to educators and curriculum developers about what the STEM education market needs, he said.

Phase II grants support actual development, though the firm has already designed machines that display data for all of the state’s water and wastewater facilities, Rainwater said. That data will help the firm develop realistic simulations for students, he said.

Rainwater also said he envisions “a simulation which basically puts the student, let’s say, in the driver seat of a Central Arkansas Water control station at the Wilson Plant off of [Interstate] 430.” The students would then be given a simulated crisis that they’d have to respond to.

This interactive tool would replace a field trip, he said, and Brown Engineers’ goal is to sell the simulation to curriculum developers or license it to schools.

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