Report: Lillian Leptos
One of the absolute joys of taking a STEAM class is seeing the unequivocal engagement of the students. The class buzzes like a hive full of worker bees as students race to collect their models and equipment before launching into the projects.
The Year 7D students are working on a bio-engineering project, using their knowledge of how muscles and tendons work to create their own mechanical hand. Each hand must pass a series of tests in order to be considered a success. The hand must be able to pick up a water filled plastic bottle, pick up and throw a tennis ball and finally must be able to master fine motor actions such as picking up a piece of popcorn.
With this sort of project, it is certainly a case of the journey being just as important as the destination, as students repeatedly come up against challenges and problems that need to be overcome.
Every team completed the challenge, often coming up with original and creative ideas. This sort of open-ended challenge allowed students to shape the project to their interests and abilities. Charlie and Bella went well beyond the initial brief, enhancing their manual design by adding an external power source and a chip that was programmed to draw together the tendons when a switch was thrown. A further adaptation was the addition of coarse material at the fingertips and palm to improve the holding ability of the hand. As if that wasn’t enough, they also built a hinged arm for their hand. Tekia took a very different direction in meeting the challenge, designing a grasping system that closes around objects.
Three of the students will be working with our tech guru Tom Naumovski, to translate Charlie’s model into a 3D printed model. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode in this voyage of discovery.
