February 2017: Student Spotlight featuring David Castelli
On Engineering
During Winter break, our very own BWSF Scholar David Castelli was part of the Villanova team that traveled around the world to Cambodia to promote S.T.E.M.
This winter break, Villanova Mechanical Engineering junior, David Castelli, was given the extraordinary opportunity to travel to Cambodia with a group of fellow Villanova engineering students. While there, he worked with the Caramanico Foundation in order to promote S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) education at a lower secondary school in Ratanakiri Providence, Ban Lung. David and his peers organized training sessions for the teachers at this school, giving them presentations on different activities related to current science and math lessons. They also planned competitions days so that students would work in groups to successfully complete various S.T.E.M related projects. The students’ favorite activity was building a paper rocket, which they would design to have the longest-lasting trajectory. They also enjoyed building a mini catapult, bridge, tower, and raft. Each competition activity awarded points to the winning teams and the team with the most amount of points after all the activities were completed won a trip to participate in the annual S.T.E.M. festival in Phnom Penh, the country’s capital. At the school, high level officials from Cambodia’s ministry of education visited to discuss the current S.T.E.M. curriculum book that we were working on and gave us insight to further expand its content.
During the week spent at the school, David and the rest of the Villanova group stayed with a Cambodian host family, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in this new and unique culture. Every day they enjoyed delicious meals consisting of rice, noodles, pork and more rice. They indulged in the country’s sweet, yet strong and addicting coffee, which lead them to snuggle 10 kilos of pure Cambodia caffeine into the United States. The Villanova team was fortunate enough to have extra time during their trip to travel and explore the city of Siem Reap, where they visited breathtaking mountains, waterfalls and temples. David was even able to get an authentic Cambodian haircut! Overall, this was an enlightening experience for these motivated Villanova engineering students; it is clear that they will use their engineering degrees to ignite change not only in their home community, but also in underprivileged areas of the world.
