Provided by the Bristol Township School District:
Bristol Township School District is proud to announce four elementary teams will participate in the Elementary STEM Design Challenge Finals.
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Organized by the Bucks County Intermediate Unit, the competition was open to all public and non-public school teams in Bucks County. The Finals will take place on Friday at the Fab Lab Center.
A total of 111 teams entered the challenge, and Bristol Township School District is representing four of the top 16 teams at the county level. The teams include #28 from Mill Creek Elementary School and #30 from Keystone Elementary School, both led by Christine Schrack, elementary teacher of gifted and talented students, as well as teams #69 and #71 from Keystone Elementary, led by Laurie Gallagher, Project Lead the Way lead teacher.
“The groups were incredibly focused and curious throughout the process,” said Schrack. “We implemented the steps of the Engineering Design Process to research the climate issue of their choice, brainstorm ideas and create the prototype. Each group showed such collaboration and creativity as they improved upon their designs and finalized their presentations and prototypes.”
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Team #28 from Mill Creek included Payton Morris, Giuliana Horne, Arianna Frank, and Victoria Bezrukavvy. They focused on the climate issue of pollution at the beach. Using K’Nex, students built a prototype of a vehicle that can drive along the beach, rake up debris and place it in a container. The vehicle also features a sifter for sand to filter through once it is raked into the container.
Team #30 from Keystone Elementary, Saahil Nihal, Liliana Hadfield, Logan Ratowski, and Sebastian Padilla, wanted to combat the lack of flowers for pollinators as their climate issue. Students built a prototype of a vehicle that rakes the ground from the front, disperses seeds from the center and covers the seeds with soil from the back. This vehicle allows seeds to be planted, so more flowers can grow and support pollinators such as bees and butterflies.
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To tackle the problem of trash in the water and how it affects wildlife, Avery Nickerson and Sanaa Green of Keystone Team #69 drew up blueprints and then built an easy-to-use machine to scoop up the trash.
Lastly, Team #71 from Keystone, consisting of Daniel Muzyk, Michael Kuznick, Jeremy Orellana and Carlos Valdez-Alvarez, worked on the climate issue of flooding. They made their prototype to look like a car from the bottom and a mop from the front. It will function to sweep away debris from sewer grates, so that the water does not accumulate and cause flooding.
To qualify for finals, the students were required to only use K’Nex pieces to assemble their creation. They also provided a journal that documented their concepts, plans and final design blueprint.
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Winners will advance to the state competition in Harrisburg.
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