Bee best: Peters Township students’ pollinator-friendly project takes first place
Dana Will, left, and Nora O'Toole discuss the Bee Box while displaying the three iterations of its prototypes.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Jenna Pacich describes the workings of the Bee Box.
Examples of seeds for the Bee Box
Harry Funk/The Almanac
From left are Peters Township students Sydney Royer, Jenna Pacich, Dana Will, Nora O’Toole and Emily Trunk.
When a team of Peters Township High School students took first place in the regional round of the Pennsylvania Governor’s STEM Competition, technology education teacher Christopher Allen experienced a burst of pride.
A completely different type of experience is forthcoming.
“I have to wear a bee suit because they won,” Allen said.
He’ll spend a school day dressed as a yellow-and-black insect as per the promise he made to seniors Nora O’Toole, Jenna Pacich, Sydney Royer, Emily Trunk and Dana Will as he provided guidance for the development of the Bee Box, their project for the competition.
The project was aimed at enhancing students’ knowledge of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by having them research, design and present innovations that can make life better for Pennsylvanians.
The Bee Box’s basic function is to spread wildflower seeds along appropriate roads, with the intention of providing more plants for pollinators. Users simply attach the device to a vehicle using industrial-strength magnets, and the seeds make their way to where they’re supposed to go.
“We did have a few issues coming in, with: How are we going to make it so that they don’t all fall out at once?” Jenna said, and the answer was to have the seeds drop through a chute and encounter a spinner that spreads them at a rate determined by how fast the vehicle travels. “Then when you’re stopped, the spinner closes so that the seeds can’t fall out.”
Nora explained the science of how everything works, which may or may not be memorable for most from physics class: stuff like the Law of Conservation of Energy and the equation mgh = ½ mv(squared), in which “m” is mass, “g” is acceleration due to gravity, “h” is height and “v” is velocity.
“Long story short, we were able to calculate the energy of the system,” she said. “We also tested it after we made it, and you would think that all the seeds would come out at once. But with how much air is being put into the system, the seeds just bounce around and then they’re evenly dispersed.”
The students wanted more seeds to be dispersed at faster speeds because they view areas along highways as optimal places for the proliferation of wildflowers, rather than residential neighborhoods.
“They’re full-sun plants and they don’t need a lot of water, and they’re pretty self-sustaining,” Emily said about the seeds the team selected for the Bee Box. “So they can survive in harsh conditions, which you’d find on the sides of highways.”
At her teacher’s urging, she looked into state littering laws and found good news.
“Because the seeds are being used as a resource to help the environment, and they’re not considered waste, it’s totally legal,” she said. “There are no issues with it.”
Dana said she and Jenna used the computer-aided design program AutoDesk Inventor, which includes a simulation function, prior to using a three-dimensional printer to produce the first Bee Box.
They made modifications to come up with two more iterations of the prototype prior to the STEM regional competition, which included schools from Washington, Greene and Fayette counties. While taking first place, Peters Township also happened to field the only all-female team.
Further Bee Box improvements are in the works prior to the state competition, scheduled for May 7-8. Along with presenting information about the product, itself, the students also will discuss aspects of a business plan they’ve developed.
“We were thinking about doing a monthly subscription for the seeds, so that you don’t have to go out and buy them yourself. That way, we control the seeds we send to you, based on the season and what seeds will help Pennsylvania the best,” Sydney said. “We were also thinking of making a website, where you can sort of customize the experience, and we’ll get more feedback on people’s usage of the product and how to make it better.”
In fact, members of the team plan to continue working on the Bee Box as a viable product after they graduate from high school.
“The judges told us, ‘Hey, you should carry on with this, because it’s actually a really good idea.’ They mentioned how they could really see it taking off in the future,” Nora said. “And with the idea of the environment in mind, this really is the future.”