Upper St. Clair earns gold at STEM challenge
Upper St. Clair middle school students demonstrate their projects during the STEM challenge.
Upper St. Clair middle school students demonstrate their projects during the STEM challenge.
Teams from Boyce and Fort Couch middle schools placed first in their respective divisions at the regional STEM Design Challenge held March 29 at the Commonwealth Charter Academy in Homestead.
The team of Boyce Middle School fifth-graders Michael Clarke, Sarah Staub, Brayden Wong, and Rebecca Zahalsky earned first place in the fourth- and fifth-grade division.
The Fort Couch team of seventh-graders Felix Chen, Aaron Jiang, John Whitman and Joey Wyse finished first in the sixth- to eighth-grade division.
Both teams advanced to the state-level competition set for May 12 in Harrisburg.
Sponsored by Thermo Fisher Scientific and coordinated through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, the event encourages students to apply STEM skills using K’Nex products to design and build a structure that accomplishes the given goal.
Teams must create a blueprint and journal that outlines their structure and the engineering design process they went through to create it. At the competition, teams build their structure from their blueprints in a two-hour time period. Once completed, they present their design solution to a team of judges.
In total, four Upper St. Clair middle school teams competed in the STEM challenge.
Boyce sixth-graders Claire Dietiker, Lindsey Fitzgerald, Sunny Liu and Mira Murthy finished third in grade division 6-8.
Fort Couch eighth-graders Josh Beitler, Matt Beitler and Anthony Dipiazza earned an honorable mention in grade division 6-8.