To commemorate the second Pes Day, the IEEE student branch chapter of National Polytechnic University (Spanish: Escuela Politecnica Nacional) in Quito, Ecuador invited 30 students from Santo Domingo School, to celebrate the PES´s day with us. The objective of the event was to teach students about high voltage throughout a conference and experiments.

Together with WIEE, and the robotics club, we prepared a series of activities for this day, as the number of students was large, all children were divided into four different groups. In the case of PES chapter, we explained to them about the high voltage laboratory at Escuela Politecnica Nacional, we prepared three activities for them to understand the function of the mentioned laboratory.

The first activity was a small conference to explain to them about electricity and why high voltage is important to have electrical energy in homes.

To demonstrate the laboratory to them in functions we prepared two experiments. In the first experiment, we put a glass plate between two electrodes, the first one was a cable fed through a 100KV transformer and the other electrode was an aluminum plate. The idea was to show students the micro discharges around the dielectric material.

The other experiment was designed to demonstrate the cause of failure in a porcelain insulator, so that students were able to see the electric arc. It is important to mention that students received an explanation about all the security rules in the laboratory and about Faraday cage principle, in order for them not to feel nervous during this activity.

Gilson Fuentes
PES student member, PES ambassador for 2nd PES day