Engineering Manager at Custom Aluminum Products, Alex, and Outdoor Living Connection Project Manager, Hannah, toured the GK buildings to talk to students about their new STEM program.
Both of them were amazed at the work being done in Mr. McCune’s Project Lead The Way (PLTW) classes at GKMS. Through some brainstorming and collaboration, Mr. McCune, Alex and Hannah developed a real-world project that the GKMS 7th grade students could participate in to help bring the design and engineering curriculum to life. The students were told that their client would be OLC, and their challenge was to create accessory products for a slat-wall fence.
Over the next few weeks, the students would not only dive into designing products that consumers would want to purchase, but also understanding what goes into making those products and what considerations need to be made, like scale, fit, form, and function. At the end of the challenge, students presented their designs to OLC, and they were amazed at the ideas that the students came up with!
OLC and Custom Aluminum plan to take some of these concepts and work with their engineers to finalize drawings and potentially prototype them as well. Custom Aluminum and OLC presented our students with thank you cards from the management team at Custom Aluminum and OLC, along with a special gift and invitation to attend a “Preview & Pizza Party” event at the new location of The Inventor’s Lab. This will be on Friday, May 3 from 5:30-7:00 PM and is open to all 6th-8th grade students to tour ahead of their Grand Opening Celebration on Saturday, May 4 from 1:00-4:00 PM.