Emily Byers, a Bluffton second-grade student this past school year, has placed 3rd in the statewide Imagine Engineering Coloring Contest out of more than 6,000
students.

Emily, daughter of Justin and Karen Byers, was a student in Mrs. Fry's classroom when she entered the contest.

Her winning entry involved a picture of an engineer reviewing her roller coaster design plans at a site visit. For her efforts, Emy received the third-place prize, a MathShark skill-building game and calculator.

The Ohio Society of Professional Engineers explained the background of the contest this way:

Children often go through their school years not knowing what Ohio's PE's do
in their own communities. The Ohio Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE)
wants to help change this.

"Many children would study engineering if they were just exposed to the
concept," says OSPE President Kevin Ernst, P.E. "As second graders, they use
their imaginations to create entire worlds. Think of the great things they
might do someday with engineering!"

Each year, thousands of Ohio second graders learn what engineers do when OSPE members take the popular Imagine Engineering program to local elementary students around the state. 

This year OSPE members developed, filmed and distributed a new, virtual presentation through which they explained engineering at a fundamental level and demonstrated simple and complex machines.

In the virtual presentation, OSPE members also showed students how changing the shape of the materials used in engineering designs may improve their strength or performance.