Saturday, January 19, 2019
By AMANDA TONOLI
atonoli@vindy.com
AUSTINTOWN
An apocalyptic future was upon sixth- and seventh-graders at Austintown Middle School this past week.
In a world where only doctors, scientists and machinists are left, students were tasked with making machines to carry supplies, transport fictitious people, collect sunlight and more.
Using gears was a main facet of this make-believe project, allowing students to utilize their Science, Technology, Engineering and Math skills for this lesson.
“This gives them a real-world scenario of something they might be interested in,” said Doug Eisenbraun, seventh-grade teacher. “It gives them a chance to use certain mechanisms.”
Seventh-grader Emma Repula said she was using her skills with gears to fulfill her task of having her machine go over rough terrain in search of survivors.
“It’s a really good experience,” she said.
Bre Mosholder, seventh-grader, agreed.
“I just think it’s fun and interesting,” she said.
John Darney, seventh-grader, whose favorite part was being able to work with the moving parts, liked the challenge.
Sixth-grader Luna Niles agreed: “My favorite part was just building it.”
In all, the assignment was a challenge that put students to work.
“It was very hard to make three things go at once, but watching it all move at the same time was glorious,” said sixth-grader Robert Roach.
The fun for the instructors was watching each group of students work toward its set goal.
“It’s interesting to see how they meet the different requirements they need for the different tasks,” Eisenbraun said.
After this phase of the STEM robotics lesson is complete, students will move on to learning programming for their machines.
Danielle Chine, STEM instructional coach, said she’s excited for what’s ahead in the coming weeks – one lesson includes handling medical data.
“We’re going to start a medical detectives unit dealing with vital signs and more,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”