November/ December 2015 ISSUE
When Pumpkins Fly
By: Hunter Britton, Tanner Wilson Every year STEM holds a Fall Festival that includes team building activities involving every grade level and the freshman’s Pumpkin Chunkin' contest. Pumpkin Chunkin' is when the freshman build trebuchets in order to launch pumpkins. A trebuchet is like a catapult but it has a free moving sling unlike a catapult which has a connected sling. The day started off with everyone in their assigned classrooms doing an activity where the students guessed the various distances of how far the freshmen trebuchets would launch. Then the fun moved outside where students were greeted with six various team-building activities: an obstacle course, cornhole, ultimate Jenga, “Minute to Win It” challenges, and the launching of trebuchets. Each team rotated through the stations to build community and get to know other STEM students. The freshmen in each group would later switch to the launching zone to launch their trebuchets. Each freshman team was given three tries to launch a horse apple as far as they could. The top two teams from each group went to the semi-finals, and the top three from there then went on into the finals. The winning team had the farthest launch at 138 feet which barely broke the previous record which was 136.5 feet. Congratulations to the team of Kaylee Simpson, Hulen Howard and Austin Schaaf for breaking the record with their Hunger Games themed trebuchet. David Hunt, a freshman in the STEM Academy, shared his thoughts on what the best part of the project was. He said, “Building was actually rather fun,” but when asked what the hardest part of the project was, he said, “Designing… a lot of it was hard to get done and you had to be a bit creative especially when it came to the sling.” Mrs. Garrett, STEM Engineering I instructor, commented on this project saying, “This project teaches them basic construction skills, basic designing skills, and how to integrate multiple subjects into engineering.” Mrs. Garrett also said, “They get to come out and see what they have done and see how it works, look at their design, look at their mistakes and how they can fix them.” Overall, the Fall Festival was a productive and successful day for STEM students. Photos courtesy of Hunter Britton and STEM Twitter. |
Important Dates:
Semester Exams: January 12-15, 2016 Fundraiser at Fuzzy's in Roanoke: January 19 @ 6pm Booster Club Meeting: January 28 @ 6pm Community Reveal (9th School of the Future): January 28 @ 6:30pm TechnoExpo @ NHS: February 25 @ 6pm Jorge Wishes You All a Happy Holidays!
Looking to the Future with College Fair
By: Garrett Riley The 2015 college fair held on October 28, 2015, offered career presentations including college options and military programs. For the event, NHS was filled with ninety-four booths representing different colleges and branches of the military. Many STEM students brought family members to the college fair to help them choose their right university. One STEM student in particular, Bailey Smith stated, “This college fair was a good idea for students to find more information about different college options.” Other booths represented college funding aid and college visit stations. An important university to the STEM community, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, was also there giving important information that could help students decide if an engineering path was the right path for them. Embry Riddle Aeronautical University holds potential careers for many engineering minded people such as aerospace engineering, computer science, and aeronautical engineering. As STEM chemistry teacher Kim Hendrix expressed, “[It was] great to see so many universities come to recruit students from Northwest High School. I like to see students planning for their next educational challenge. I would have liked to have seen more STEM kids at the event - make plans for next year's event!” If this is your first time going to a college fair you might want to use some practical tips. It’s your chance to pick up brochures and ask questions about a variety of colleges, all in one place. Before you go to a college fair, think about what kind of college would suit you best.This is also a good time to gather information from people and resources around you. Talk to your counselors about your college plans. Use resource materials at the counselor’s office or library and on the Web to research colleges. Finally, talk to your parents, family, and friends about your questions or concerns. Photo courtesy of http://tinyurl.com/hwtgvpf |
Robotics Competition
By: Jack Cobb, Nathan Fusselman The STEM Robotics Club is a team unique to the STEM Academy at Northwest High School. The team works hard each year for two national competitions, BEST and FIRST. Each year there is a different theme and new task to complete in these competitions. The team is challenged to create a robot to do certain tasks with a limited amount of supplies and time to create the best robot possible for the job. This year, the team has already gone to the BEST competition and is preparing to go to FIRST. For the 2015 BEST Robotics Competition, Pay Dirt, the club ended up placing 6th out of nineteen in the competition. This year’s competition was a mining simulation where the team would collect numerous types of ore. The robot for this year was a single arm and hand design that would be able to maximize the team’s ability to gain points. Although there were many difficulties when it came to keeping the robot running, in the end, the team pulled out to be a part of the semi-finals. Andrew Murry, a senior in the STEM Robotics Club, said, "This year’s robot was much more advanced and successful compared to past years." As well as creating an effective robot to complete the task, the club also created a presentation and a display booth. In the display booth, the team went over the top with creating an accurate mine shaft to gain more points by sticking with the theme and improve the teams ranking. Although the team is challenged with making the best robot under stress, the STEM Robotics Club manages to create strong friendships with other team members. The club has meetings every week on Thursday ranging from one to three hours. The team works very hard to make the best robot they can and have fun while doing it. Mrs. Garret, the team sponsor, was very pleased with the outcome of this year’s competition, she said, “The team placed the highest as far as the robot and that the booth was the best that we ever had.” Special thanks to our mentors Kim Garrett and Jim Brown and our sponsors Lockheed Martin, Rackspace, and GE. Photos courtesy of Kim Garrett. Baiting the Sharks
By: Yasin Kahn Each year, the STEM Academy students are required to read a book over the summer for English. This year, the STEM juniors based their first project of the year on their summer reading book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451’s plot is about a fireman named Guy Montag who lives in a small futuristic American town. The town has outlawed books in fear of an independent thinking public. Montag’s primary responsibility is to burn all books and prosecute the book owners. In relation to the book, STEM Juniors were asked to make innovative technology products to assist society and individuals in the future. In doing this, they were required to write a business plan that included a product description, include a drawing to-scale, and prepare a visual for the presentation. Ms. Carrier, the STEM English III teacher was asked why she assigned this project, and she responded with, “The project was meant to give students a chance to be creative while implementing entrepreneurial skills.” The innovation aspect behind this project was chosen due to the fact that Fahrenheit 451 was written in the future forcing the author to make many assumptions on what the future would be like. Along with this, Ms. Carrier designed the project to have large amounts of writing and research. When asked what he liked about the project, Tanner Wilson, a STEM junior replied, “I like the fact that it made us think a lot and it brought out the creative side. Normally, we’re given project guidelines, but this one brought out our imagination.” When asked if these skills would ever be used in life and/or a career, Tanner responded ,“If we wanted to start our own business, there are a lot of business factors that went into this, like marketing and crunching numbers and how to manage our product.” In the end, Fahrenheit 451 was an exciting project that stimulated both the engineering structural side of the business and the creative side. Photos courtesy of Hunter Britton. Food Fight Project
By: Edgar Macias The STEM students in 10th grade recently completed the food fight project, or more commonly known as the "restaurant project.” The general objective was to make a restaurant, but there were many aspects to it that had to be carried out. The Food Fight project is the first major cross-curricular project for the sophomores involving history, biology, engineering, and English classes. Each class had a purpose involved with each other that led to the overall design of the restaurant. The overall point of the restaurant project was to “design a functioning restaurant,” that can be enjoyed by all people. In the project, teams of three to four were given two cultures which were meant to be the theme of the restaurant. As the restaurant was being designed according to the given theme, the overall purpose was to “create a base” for the sophomores to learn engineering. Students learned how to draw, which can lead to more complicated drawings and the use of programs such as AutoCAD. While the most challenging objectives were completed in engineering class, the other classes have an objective to be accomplished that serves as the whole for the restaurant design. For example, in history each team was to design and create a menu that represented their culture and create a design board for the interior of the restaurant. As described by Hector Almada-Mill, the most difficult part of the project, “was to make the full menu, and explaining something in a short amount of words like restaurants do.” (Click here for an example of a design board) Then in biology class, the sophomores were to analyze three healthy food menu items in an effort to find things like lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, and the different things that goes into the food. In addition, the teams were to make an advertisement for their restaurants in English class, where students learned about color choices and layout designs. The restaurant project is done every year for the sophomores in the STEM Academy, though there are some differences each year because it to covers so many different aspects. The project teaches sophomores that all content and skills are “incorporated into the real world aspect of designing [or] building a business,” according to STEM engineering teacher Jacqueline Delong. When the project was finished, the students understood how interlinked all of their classes actually are. Photos courtesy of Edgar Macias. |
Blast Off! STEMers Take on NASA
The STEM aerospace II class just sent a team to NASA. As a part of their year-long project, a team of students were invited to present their flight profile data to NASA engineers at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The goal of the project is to design, build, and successfully launch a transonic rocket. Can you say sonic BOOM? During the fall, students work with mathematical equations to determine acceleration, thrust, velocity, altitude, and friction, while trying to reach Mach 1 --all while taking into account power ascent and coasting ascent, parachute deployment, drag on the rocket and fuel burnout time. Each student in the course is required to create a spreadsheet with flight profile data based on their calculations. Once the data was complete, each student presented their data and spreadsheet to the class. The top three students were then selected to represent NISD STEM at the NASA Oberth Flight Profile presentation day. This year the team consisted of: Leila Aghili, Jarrett Hanson, Tanner Reinhardt and sponsors Casey Helmick and John Klingseisen. The team spent three days traveling and/or visiting NASA. It was a great experience for both the students and teachers – one that very few students have the opportunity to participate in. “Only about 20 students are invited every year – it’s a huge honor to be here” stated Jarrett Hanson. The team was also able to tour the Johnson Space Center, spend time in the museum and the trolley tour. Tanner stated that his favorite part was seeing “Saturn V up close and personal. It’s huge!” and he added “stopping at Buc-ee’s was pretty fun.” But it wasn’t all fun and games! The team had to create a presentation that would showcase their flight profile data and allow time for feedback or questions from the engineers. On the day of presentations, our STEMers volunteered to go first. Their presentation was fantastic! Not only were they great speakers and well prepared, their prezi was professional and interesting. The NASA engineers even commented that our students could create his presentations for work from now on. It even took 10 minutes for the next team to volunteer to present after us! After all of the teams had presented, the team enjoyed lunch in the NASA café and a private tour of non-public sites. They were able to see a working mission control and get behind-the-scenes look at active NASA projects. The feedback provided was “invaluable to our team” and will help us “make changes to improve our rocket” stated Leila Aghili. Mrs. Helmick added, “I was so excited that I was able to attend. I usually have to watch the happenings on twitter so this was a fantastic opportunity for me… oh and for the kids!” Stay tuned for more information as our rocketeers begin their final design process and building of the rockets. On May 14, 2016 we will be in Fredericksburg, Texas to launch five STEM rockets – four 1:1 (1 mile, 1 lb. payload) and one transonic rocket. We hope to reach all of our goals and recover our rockets successfully. Photos courtesy of Casey Helmick. Products of the Future
By: Colin Long STEM seniors wrapped up their first major project of the year by presenting their ideas and products to a board of judges. The senior project's goal was to create a product to help satisfy a consumer need, through research, design, and teamwork. Their teacher, Mr. Brown stated that the importance of this project was to "take the students through the process of creating a product," and that is exactly what they did. Three STEM Academy seniors, Leila Aghili, Sean Riggen, and Andreas Montoya, told us a little about the project and what it taught them about the business world. Leila Aghili, the leader of the winning team, created a chapstick container with screw-on lid that you can attach to a keychain. This was very exciting for her, because this is an idea she has had since middle school, and she was "finally able to bring it to life" through this project. But how exactly did she do that? It started with simple research. How well would this product do in the real world? Would people buy this product? Is this a realistic product? These are all questions each team had to answer before creating their product. After they decided on their product, they moved to the computer for design. After design was complete, they watched their product come to life inside of a 3D printer. "It helped show us how much work it really takes to create a product that consumers will love," says Riggen. Another STEM senior, Andreas Montoya, shared his thoughts on the project. He said it helped him better understand what the professional business world is like, and also helped him decide his career path as his life moves forward into the future. He also mentioned that this project helped him appreciate how much work is actually put in to creating products. This senior project taught important life lessons while preparing STEM students for future business careers. Photos courtesy of Jim Brown. Old Habits Die Hard
By: Mack Zimmerman As a summer reading assignment, this year’s freshmen read the book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, like many STEM classes before them. However, this year they took the application one step further and put together an interactive lecture highlighting one of the seven habits described in the book. 7 Habits of Highly EffectiveTeens is a self-help book by Sean Covey aimed at helping teenagers and young adults become more productive by informing them of seven habits proven to people lead more effective lives. The freshmen were required to write and deliver an interactive lecture overviewing the entire book and highlighting one of the seven habits. One thing that makes this project unique is that the lecture they created had to have an interactive element to teach the freshmen the importance of holding the audience’s attention when giving a presentation. According to one of the freshmen, Austin Miller, “Giving the talk was probably the hardest part” because the added interactive element was something that they had not experienced before. This project challenged the freshmen by requiring them to give a lecture that incorporated their audience. Holding the attention of the audience is one of the most important aspects of any presentation, and a project designed to teach this concept to freshmen while they are beginning to learn the project based learning format is a very valuable investment. Along with the lecture, students were required to include an interactive activity and a digital element in their lesson. The teams also prepared a digital poster summarizing all seven habits and a poster specifically focusing on their one assigned habit. According to STEM freshman English teacher Karen Carrier, "The students did a great job presenting their lessons, especially considering this was the first presentation for many of them. Many teams went above and beyond, showing quite a bit of creativity in their interactive activities and digital elements." The project allowed the students to gain some experience in teamwork, Project Based Learning, and presentations. Overall, it was a success for the freshmen. A Splash in Roanoke
By: Jackie Watkins Over the course of four weeks, the STEM Algebra II class was tasked to design a new water feature for downtown Roanoke. They were challenged to create orthographic and isometric drawings, find the equation for the flow of the water, as well as building a 3D model of their water feature. This project focused on the quadratic formula and how changing it slightly will result in different sized “arcs.” Before the project started Adrian Romero, STEM junior, said he felt that the project was going to be difficult. He also said he learned “a lot about quadratic equations and formulas and to always have faith in your team.” He applied everything he had learned, and he said that he thought it turned out great. When asked how he felt about each team having students from a different grade level he said, “It really helps create new ideas and helps you get to know other people in STEM.” Jacob Ruhl, STEM freshman, also said he felt “that it would be fun and cool to work with juniors and sophomores.” After the project he thought his team did the best and that communication was important throughout it. He said the most important things he learned were, “how to manage time wisely and how to apply equations to a model.” Overall this was a very important project for the STEM Algebra II class; it taught important math skills such as the quadratic formula and applying it to everyday life as well as bringing the STEM students closer together. Photos courtesy of Jackie Watkins. |
A Magical Tree House
By: Trevor Watkins
STEM students are always happy to get involved with younger students to share information about STEM and provide them with educational opportunities early on. STEM students recently did just that with elementary students at Roanoke Elementary when they launched a "create a tree house project" with the students.
This is the second year that STEM and Roanoke have teamed up to work on this project. The project begins with Northwest High School STEM students giving Roanoke elementary students a virtual tour around the academy to show the classrooms, maker spaces and workshops. The tour wraps up with a question and answer session where Roanoke students are able to ask STEM students about their projects and working with teams.
At the end, the STEM students launched the project by introducing the driving question --“How can we as third graders design and build a tree house using the engineering design process that includes simple machines?”-- and challenging the students to find a solution. After being introduced to the driving question, the elementary students then learn that they will be using the PBL process as they work as a team to design a solution to the problem presented.
After the three weeks, the STEM students went to Roanoke Elementary School to judge the final product. The STEM students were impressed by all of the teams preparation and creative ideas. After hearing all of the presentations, the judges, consisting of Roanoke administration and STEM students, deliberated and chose the winning team. According to STEM senior Leila Aghili, “The winning product was a team that stood out from the rest, and had an excellent presentation. Their tree house incorporated a slide and a bucket to transfer items from the ground to the tree house for their simple machines. Their model had a lot of effort put into it, and they had even made people inside there tree house and climbing up the steps out of Popsicle sticks."
The winning team was kept a secret until the STEM students could create the Roanoke students model in SolidWorks and use the 3D printer to print a scale model. The STEM students surprised the winning team on Friday, December 18th during the morning assembly at Roanoke Elementary. The team was very excited to be honored and loved their finished model.
Overall, the students felt like this experience was something that they could take with them through the rest of their school career and that left a lasting effect as they thought it was some of the most fun that they had ever had learning in school.
Photos courtesy of Leila Aghili.
By: Trevor Watkins
STEM students are always happy to get involved with younger students to share information about STEM and provide them with educational opportunities early on. STEM students recently did just that with elementary students at Roanoke Elementary when they launched a "create a tree house project" with the students.
This is the second year that STEM and Roanoke have teamed up to work on this project. The project begins with Northwest High School STEM students giving Roanoke elementary students a virtual tour around the academy to show the classrooms, maker spaces and workshops. The tour wraps up with a question and answer session where Roanoke students are able to ask STEM students about their projects and working with teams.
At the end, the STEM students launched the project by introducing the driving question --“How can we as third graders design and build a tree house using the engineering design process that includes simple machines?”-- and challenging the students to find a solution. After being introduced to the driving question, the elementary students then learn that they will be using the PBL process as they work as a team to design a solution to the problem presented.
After the three weeks, the STEM students went to Roanoke Elementary School to judge the final product. The STEM students were impressed by all of the teams preparation and creative ideas. After hearing all of the presentations, the judges, consisting of Roanoke administration and STEM students, deliberated and chose the winning team. According to STEM senior Leila Aghili, “The winning product was a team that stood out from the rest, and had an excellent presentation. Their tree house incorporated a slide and a bucket to transfer items from the ground to the tree house for their simple machines. Their model had a lot of effort put into it, and they had even made people inside there tree house and climbing up the steps out of Popsicle sticks."
The winning team was kept a secret until the STEM students could create the Roanoke students model in SolidWorks and use the 3D printer to print a scale model. The STEM students surprised the winning team on Friday, December 18th during the morning assembly at Roanoke Elementary. The team was very excited to be honored and loved their finished model.
Overall, the students felt like this experience was something that they could take with them through the rest of their school career and that left a lasting effect as they thought it was some of the most fun that they had ever had learning in school.
Photos courtesy of Leila Aghili.