Submitted by Mitzi Karr
On March 9th, six teams from Indian Rock and six teams from East York participated in the K’Nex STEM Design Challenge that was held at the Lincoln IU12 in New Oxford.
The STEM (which is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Challenge this year was to design an environmentally friendly building that is at least one meter tall and can hold weight. The students stayed after school and also worked in class to prepare for the competition, researching current building practices and testing preliminary structural designs. On the day of the competition, students could not have any K’Nex joined when they arrived. They had two hours to rebuild their structure in the competition room using a blueprint they had prepared ahead of time. The teams were also required to prepare a presentation to show the strength of the building (using books, weights, etc.) and address how the building is environmentally friendly. The teams, each comprising four students, also had to bring a completed narrative report to the competition.
The teams were judged in the following categories: creativity, teamwork, challenge success, design, and presentation. A lot of creativity, perseverance, and hard work went into each one of these projects. After weeks of diligent effort, it was time to be interviewed by the judges.
In the Grades 4-5 Division, one of the Indian Rock Teams, The Connecting Ecos, took 1st place with their project entitled “Octomarket.” The members of this team, shown in the picture above, include Olivia Sarsfield, Harlan (Harry) Perkins, Neave Casey, and Abigail Miller. These students will now have the privilege of reconstructing and presenting their building during The State Competition on May 13th at Harrisburg University. Congratulations to all of the teams. Your hard work and dedication are to be commended.