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Provided by the Bristol Township School District:

The Bristol Township School District is proud to announce that four elementary teams will participate in the Elementary STEM Design Challenge Finals.

Hosted by the Bucks County Intermediate Unit, the competition was open to all Bucks County public and private school teams. The finals will take place on Friday at the Fab Lab Center.

A total of 111 teams participated in the challenge, with the Bristol Township School District representing four of the top 16 teams at the county level. Teams include Mill Creek Elementary School #28 and Keystone Elementary School #30, both led by Christine Schrack, an elementary school teacher of gifted and talented students, as well as Elementary School teams #69 and #71. Keystone, led by Laurie Gallagher, Lead the Way Project Lecturer.

“The groups were incredibly focused and curious throughout the entire process,” said Schrack. “We implement the steps of the engineering design process to investigate the climate problem of your choice, brainstorm, and create the prototype. Each group showed so much collaboration and creativity in refining their designs and finalizing their presentations and prototypes.”

Mill Creek’s #28 team included Payton Morris, Giuliana Horne, Arianna Frank and Victoria Bezrukavvy. They focused on the climate issue of pollution on the beach. Using K’Nex, students built a prototype of a vehicle that can drive along the beach, pick up debris, and place it in a container. The vehicle also features a sieve to filter the sand once it is raked into the bin.

The 30th Keystone Elementary School team of Saahil Nihal, Liliana Hadfield, Logan Ratowski and Sebastian Padilla wanted to combat lack of flowers for pollinators as a climate issue. The students built a prototype of a vehicle that rakes the soil from the front, disperses seeds from the center, and covers the seeds with soil from the rear. This vehicle allows seeds to be planted, so they can grow more flowers and support pollinators like bees and butterflies.

To address the issue of litter in the water and how it affects wildlife, Avery Nickerson and Sanaa Green of Keystone Team #69 drew up plans and then built an easy-to-use machine to pick up the litter.

Lastly, Keystone Team #71, made up of Daniel Muzyk, Michael Kuznick, Jeremy Orellana and Carlos Valdez-Alvarez, worked on the climate issue of flooding. They made their prototype to look like a car from below and a mop from the front. It will work to sweep debris out of the sewer grates, so water doesn’t pool up and cause flooding.

To qualify for the finals, students were required to use only K’Nex parts to assemble their creation. They also provided a journal documenting their concepts, plans, and final design blueprint.

The winners will advance to the state competition in Harrisburg.

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