"Fire in the hole!" shouted James Dreschel, a technology education teacher flanked by expectant students, as he launched a soda charger-powered wooden projectile across the cafeteria floor toward a cardboard contraption cradling an egg. Most of the time, victorious fist pumps followed, as the students left with their eggs intact. But sometimes, groans and laughs would signal failure, when the eggs were cracked.
In its second year, the interscholastic STEM league was launched by a group of teachers who wanted to create a way to engage students in practical applications of engineering and hold the same kind of meets as athletic leagues do.
"The whole idea is to make kids motivated and trying to apply STEM together with teamwork where everyone has a talent," said Drechsel, who is also one of the chief coordinators for STEM.
Drechsel came up with the idea of STEM after a wrestling meet last year when he began to wonder whether the competitive and interscholastic nature of athletics could be applied to academics.
In its inaugural year, the league consisted of four teams, including Waldwick’s. Within a year, the league ballooned to 21, creating a statewide coalition of competitors who hold "meets" at one another’s facilities.
This year’s meet featured more than 60 students representing six schools: High Point, Lakeland Regional, Northern Highlands, Ramsey, Waldwick and Wallkill Valley. Each school’s group was broken into two teams of five, with each member given a specific responsibility.
As it was last year, the meet was scheduled for Veterans Day and had a military theme. Last year’s challenge, dubbed "Lego NXT Mindstorms Prosthetic Hand," was to create a functioning prosthetic arm that could pick up a cup. Speakers from all different backgrounds, including a student from Stevens Institute of Technology specializing in myoelectric (electric signals produced by muscles) prostheses and a veteran who had lost a hand during combat, attended to mentor and speak to the students.
This year, the theme was "Passive and Compliant Mechanical Reactive Armor," which required the teams to engineer a protective armor system using principles utilized in the development of actual military armor for field vehicles. The challenge required teams to construct armor with certain regulatory constraints, such as prototype weight, that would protect a target (an egg) from a projectile. Each team had to not only design a working prototype, but effectively record, substantiate and present its research and work. Upon completion the teams’ results were recorded and judged by a panel.
The panel this year included former engineers, students from Stevens, and even industry engineers from Sandvik Coromant, a steel-cutting company.
For teachers and coaches, the challenge, while about competition on the surface, is more about student engagement and teaching skills for the future.
"Hands-on to them is where they want to be," said Greg DiLorenzo, a Northern Highlands math teacher and STEM team coach. "The more you tie it in with a real-life situation, the more intense they get."
To whet their creative and academic appetites, experts from the field spoke to the students prior to the challenge. They included Sgt. Jamal Braithwaite, from the U.S. Marine Corps; Shahram Dabiri, a technology manager at the ARDEC STEM Education Program Office at the Picatinny Arsenal; and Capt. James Giacchi, Armor Officer, 1st Squadron 102nd Cavalry Regiment New Jersey Army National Guard, who is a mechanical engineer in the remote weapons branch of the Picatinny Arsenal.
The Picatinny Arsenal even brought along a military vehicle called Robotics Solution-1 (RS-1). The vehicle, equipped with a M153 Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS), would enable soldiers to remotely pilot and fire the mounted weapon, effectively eliminating the risk of human casualties. All the students, including borough middle school students, were invited to test and play with the robot — disarmed and unloaded, of course.
"Getting this military robot was huge," said Drechsel. "We’re the first public eye to see it. The kids right now are playing with a live, full-scale robot."
At the end of the challenge, Giacchi presented awards in five categories.Northern Highlands Team 2 won best overall presentation, Lakeland won for the best prototype. Northern Highlands Team 1 won for the best STEM documentation, and Waldwick Team 1 won for the best engineering documentation.
Overall, Ramsey Team 1 came in third with High Point Team 2 in second, and Northern Highlands Team 2 in first.
While the awards were given out with the same pomp, circumstance and pride of an athletic competition, there was an air of camaraderie and common interest in the challenge at hand.
For the full story: http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/students-get-a-charge-out-of-household-soda-maker-1.1458165