Aerospace, STEM, and Cyber Education



WAMA Aerospace, STEM, & Cyber Education Officer WAMA Assistant Aerospace Education OfficerDr. Sylvie Giral Kacmarcik, Major, CAP Capt. C. Allan Reitan, CFII. MEI
WAWG Director of Aerospace Education WAWG Internal Aerospace Education Officer
Sylvie.Kacmarcik@wawg.cap.gov SWGP Aerospace Education Officer
https://members.wawg.cap.gov/departments/aerospace-education Allan.Reitan@wawg.cap.gov
11-12 June 2022 - Bridge Engineering in the Aerospace Industry (in-person)
Instructors: Maj Sylvie Kacmarcik, SM Elizabeth Nickel, & C/Maj Adrián Kacmarcik
During this week-end, cadet and senior member participants will explore the topic of bridge engineering in the aerospace industry. After an historic overview of the evolution of bridges through time, we will look into the physics of bridges and the different types of bridges using a variety of hands-on activities and computer simulations.
Grouped in teams, students will design their own bridge to answer the dilemmas presented by the situation they will be given. To enhance the challenge, each team will have to create a different type of bridge than the other teams. They will use the CAP STEM kit for Bridge Building to construct their bridge on Saturday. On Sunday morning, stress tests will be run to identify faults in the designs and find alternative solutions to reinforce their bridges. Come ready to explore and have fun !
For this weekend, we recommend that participants come with their own laptop, netbook, or tablet (TO BE USED IN CLASS ONLY) to be able to run some bridge engineering simulations.
WAMA Aerospace Education Track:
Through the WAMA Aerospace Education Track, cadets and senior members will be able to enjoy learning and exploring a variety of AE and STEM topics, as well as progress through their professional development. This track will also help you earn Certificates and Badges.
More experienced cadets will have the opportunity to assist, tutor and/or teach as part of the AE track of WAMA which will help them in their progress towards higher STEM badge ratings. AE classes will have a scaffolding structure where more experienced cadets will mentor less experienced ones in addition to doing more challenging activities.
For Senior Members: AEOs duties and Specialty Track Rating progressions require AEOs to participate to activities at group, wing, and region levels. WAMA is considered a Wing level activity. AEOs can participate in many ways:
- Observing: learn new activities or new ways of doing activities and classes.
- Assisting: some activities would benefit from having more than one AEO in the room and we will be grateful for any help offered.
- Instructing: if you have an activity that you would love to share and teach, please contact WAMA’s AEO and we will work on integrating it in our program.

Both the Cadet STEM Badge and Cadet Cyber Badge use a modular format. Recipients obtain a single, basic badge, and affix the appropriate star to denote their level of achievement. A blue star indicates the Basic rating, a silver star indicates the Intermediate rating, and a gold star indicates the Advanced rating. As cadets earn ratings, they may remove the old star and install the new, while keeping the same basic badge.
For summary tables on how to earn the Cadet STEM and CYBER Badges with increasing rating, please consult the WAWG AE webpage.