The presentations of this year’s STEM Capstone projects made by juniors were held in the PAC on Tuesday the 14th from 6 to 8. These students could showcase their final or current product progress that represents the skills and problem-solving technology they learned from their time working in the semester. The audience consisted of peers, teachers, and parents.
“In our STEM academy, we really focus on the science, technology, and engineering piece, we do math but it’s all kind of integrated into everything. The STEM fields are exploding right now, there is a lot of push to get more people into the STEM fields,” explains Daniel Dannahower, the director of the STEM academy.
The event kicked off with the guests snacking on provided chips, drinks, and other goodies while entering into an introduction of the students’ goals for the projects. Afterward, the students explained their main presentations on their project steps and timelines. Many students reflected on how they learned lessons beyond the classroom. Some include collaboration and teamwork as they navigated through challenges or hiccups in building and testing their products.
When the groups finished on stage with the overall explanation of their work, everyone present separated to have more discussions with the groups at their booths.
The group that created the Electric Go-kart expressed how far they came with their beginning parts.
“In the winter when we first went out and saw the kart it was in pretty rough shape. It had been left uncovered for most of the winter so, the first point of action was actually to buy a tent that we could put on it”, says a member of the Electric Go-Kart team.
They then went on to order a new engine, steering wheel, and used a newer battery to improve the run time of the car.
Time and money management was another key part of gathering their resources. The many groups supported their work with the funding of sponsors and the supporting help from teachers or other mentors.
The Electric Snow Shovel team explained how their project could be a huge help to people who struggle with clearing snow.
“Shoveling is hard and people struggle with it. We wanted to make a shovel that’s easy to use and accessible to anyone.”
“The shovel can reach speeds of three and a half miles per hour, it can put an output torque of over 40-foot pounds which is equivalent pushing over 80 pounds of snow, the battery life can last for about 25 minutes at full throttle or closer to 50 minutes for standard use”, says a member of the Electric Snow Shovel team.
They also hoped to make it affordable, quieter, and more efficient, especially for older people.
Dannahower was proud of his students but knew there is always room for improvement. “I think that the biggest thing I want to keep improving on is getting the teams access to professional mentors so that when they have difficult stuff they have to work through that they have someone they can fall back on instead of just me because I don’t know everything.”
“I thought the students did a great job presenting and displaying all the hard work that they have done… throughout the semester,” addresses Daniel Dannahower about the night’s event.
The night concluded around 8 with the students feeling delighted for showing off their work.
“I would like to thank Fossil Ridge for supporting our program, because I think it’s really valuable and without the support of the administration that we wouldn’t be able to do it , and I want to keep it going for a long time,” ends Dannahower
