Tech Night Thrills Parents, Pupils

COURT HOUSE – Those fearing that the nation’s children eschew anything remotely related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) need only to have walked the halls of Middle Township Elementary School No. 2 Feb. 28 at Technology Night.  
Buzzing with the excitement and pride of over two dozen participating students and an estimated 50 to 70 family members, the school hosted four general areas that demonstrated various student projects created with STEM in mind.
Menagerie of Talent
In the cafeteria, guests could create food bots and brush bots, with the latter one able to move after a small motor and battery were attached to the head of a toothbrush.
Students and parents crowded the tables to assemble the tiny robots, and when one particular brush bot began to dance across the table top a watching child was heard to exclaim, “They actually work?”
The Media Center hosted stations with tablets allowing guests to make photo collages or view student-made ‘book trailers,’ in which students made and edited movie-like previews of a book.
Also on display was the school’s 3D printer, a machine that uses additive manufacturing (AM) to add successive layers of material to make a model designed using computer programs.
Kelsey Acker’s Gifted and Talented Math students presented their NASA-related projects in the Mural Area. The students chose either to design a school that would be built on Mars or “spinning off” NASA technology to solve community problems.
Simon Hardin, 10, displayed the robotic arm he designed after thinking about the challenges faced by a disabled student in Elementary School No. 2.
Fifth-grader Tyler Murnaghan aptly presented his team’s design for a school on a distant planet.
Armed with a video introduction, a Google Slides show, and a detailed design plan, Murnaghan informed this reporter that there were many obstacles to overcome on Mars.
Asked what facts about the red planet surprised him most, Murnaghan said that he was taken aback by, “how cold and how harsh Mars is.”
Lab E-11 was set up to teach children about computer coding and the different uses of word processors.
Guests could create their own memes and craft a word cloud, which uses an algorithm of word frequency to create a graphical image.
Interrupted Tradition
Vice Principal Melanie Lisitski said that it had been a few years since a Technology Night was held. The last time, Lisitski guessed, was back in 2012 and 2013. Asked if the event would become an annual occurrence, she said, “Probably.”
Based on the response of parents and the joy students had in revealing their months of hard work, it would be a welcomed addition to school life.
During the work up for Technology Night, some students were able to present their projects to a representative from NASA who went on to show the children the new James Webb Space Telescope (https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/).
It was the kind of exposure that can take the kindling of scientific curiosity and turn it into a burning fire of future ingenuity.
To contact Christopher Knoll, email cknoll@cmcherald.com.