The Boiler: Moving Education Full Steam Ahead

(This article was originally published as part of a new section in the Wolverine Beat. "The Boiler" will be dedicated to all things STEAM-related and provide an update on what's going on in the Innovation Center as well as what's coming up.) 

Calling all Belen Engineering alumni: If you are interested in connecting with our STEAM students, specifically those taking the engineering courses, this announcement is for you. An email was sent out to the Engineering alumni network with an attached letter from Dr. Da Silva and Mr. Perez asking that a Google form be filled out. 

Mr. Perez’s Honors Engineering Design and Development course has gone through a rigorous process to determine that they would use this year to design a semi-permanent housing solution for homelessness caused by natural disasters. The team, Reach with Design, is now being led by their project manager Adrian Navarro ‘22 in searching for existing patents and products to refine the criteria their project must meet. 

Mr. Fajardo’s Computer Science courses have started the process of determining the topic for their major coding project. Students are interviewing all of Belen’s departments to identify problems or projects that could be optimized through a student-designed program/application. 

Dr. Da Silva’s Honors Anatomy and Physiology course just completed a real-world project where each student took the role of a community member and had to present a refined outbreak response brief to a simulated city council. Students had to look at real-world data to determine the goals if another outbreak were to occur, while also creating an implementation plan to ensure those goals are met. 

Mr. Cruz’s Honors Principles of Engineering course were tasked with designing a compound machine that could complete a given task, but make it easier to complete. In this case, they had to lift a 25 lb kettlebell while exerting the least amount of effort possible. 

Mr. Myer’s Introduction to Engineering Design course had designed a bean bag launching device and then had to re-design it to work as a carnival game. The game had to launch the beanbag through a hole that only between 3-5% of launches could make it through. They took what they had previously learned and use the engineering design process to apply it to this real-world scenario.

STEAM Club: The high school club has joined the Youth Drone Sports Championship with its fall season lift-off on Monday. Students met with Marty Wetherall, the founding director of the league, to learn more about the competition and the skills they can gain. They are also wrapping up a project for the celebration of masses at Belen. This project, brought to the students by Fr. Minsal at the end of last school year, allowed the students to design and develop a project for the needs of our own Belen community. The middle school club has been introduced to STEAM through two activities. During their first meeting, they were designing a bridge that could hold the most weight. During their meeting last week, they worked on designing a rubber-band-powered rover. They will learn how to design it on the computer and laser-cut their final products after testing and iterating their designs. 

Robotics Club: The high school robotics club is starting their first year in the FIRST Tech Challenge competition league with the theme Freight Frenzy. The students are competing under team numbers 19441 Verbiest Vehicles, and 19442 Wolverine Robotics. At the middle school level, students continue competing in the VEX IQ Challenge under team number 10977 Wolverine Robotics. We look forward to getting back to in-person competitions and seeing what the students design! 

Computer Science: The Belen STEAM program proudly presents the reinstatement of the Computer Science Club. The club will be an academic competition team, focusing on the American Computer Science League and Cyber Patriot. Students have been meeting to practice for the spring competition

Tours of the Innovation Center: The 6th and 7th-grade FLEX blocks have started their tours of the Roberto C. Goizueta Innovation Center. Students are introduced to the new space, equipment, and projects that can happen within. The tour is punctuated by a secret challenge the boys must complete. These will take place in the month of October for 7th-grade FLEX classes and in November for the 6th grade FLEX classes.

STEAM Across the Curriculum: Our first STEAM activity in the Innovation Center took place on Tuesday. Ms. Varela’s world history class had learned about the different types of pyramids and had designed a pyramid that would fit into a certain parameter. They were given a little over a pound of clay and they had to modify their final product based on the raw materials they had to work with, much like what had to be done when the pyramids were originally built.