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On October 18, 2025, the WTS-Boston Transportation YOU Committee successfully held its 8th annual Summit, partnering with Peabody Public Schools to host this year’s event at the new Higgins Middle School again! This event featured a wide range of transportation workshops spanning from airport design, construction, bridge building, and geotechnical engineering. 

There were five (5) hands-on transportation workshops, each developed and led by some of our sponsor companies:

• Stantec - Build Your Own Road: Construct your own roadway using common materials found in roadway construction, such as sand and gravel. This workshop discussed how roadways are built and the importance of grading and drainage.
• VHB - Demo Zone Design: Students design a construction management zone for safe demolition of a building, including barricades, signage, rerouting, and lane shifts. This hands-on exercise emphasized safety, traffic coordination, and effective site planning in urban environments.
• AECOM - Bridge Building: Do you know how bridges are designed and built? Exploring various bridge types through hands-on activities associated with each.
• Geocomp - Fun with soil and water: Experimenting with soil and building sturdy foundations. We tested how different amounts of water change the way sand holds together and saw how well it can hold up with weights.
• Suffolk - Women in Aviation: Learned to design and build a model airport, incorporating key elements such as runways, terminals, control towers, and hangars! Explored concepts in engineering, logistics, and teamwork while imagining how airports function as complex systems. Members on-site showed the complexities of building an airport such as passenger flow, aircraft operations, and safety protocols, in their designs.

The event concluded with expo-style mini-activities organized by GPI and AECOM after lunch. We would like to thank all our volunteers and sponsor companies whose support made this event possible. We also greatly appreciate our Northeastern University volunteers and Peabody Public Schools for generously hosting the event again. Stay tuned for updates on next year’s Summit!

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Interested in volunteering?

If you are interested in volunteering or have any questions, contact Transportation YOU co-chairs Alexandra Campos Castillo and Adriana Santiago at [email protected] or visit our Transportation YOU page.

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