Students ‘MacGyver’ in STEM contest

Bloomfield High School hosted a New Jersey STEM League competition last week in one of its gyms.

A STEM competition is a hands-on, problem-solving endeavor whose physical solution incorporates science, technology, engineering and math. The problem is given to teams of students in the morning and by afternoon, they must physically build their solutions and operate them for judges.

Teachers who wanted to create an alternative to sporting competitions for their students started the league about a dozen years ago. The advisor to the hometown team is BHS robotics and woodshop instructor Michael Warholak. League competition, he said, follows a standard plan: Teams are given a task designed by the hosting school, also a kit of materials to come up with a solution and the necessary documentation.

“The task is sealed until all teams are present and discover the goal together,” Warholak said. “But a tradition in the NJ STEM League is to drop a little hint in the days leading up to the meet so students can get locked into it and excited about priming for the big day.

“The kit contains various objects such as popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, scrap wood, rubber bands and paper clips,” he continued. “It’s a wide array of materials teams utilize to fashion their prototype. Not knowing what they will each create, it’s basically a pot luck of stuff they have to ‘MacGyver’ together to meet the goal.”

Participating students are selected by their teachers either for the year or a competition. Each school can do things differently and open participation up to anyone in the school or a specific club. At BHS, any interested student can participate.

“Often these students are on the RoboticsTeam or in the Technology Student Association,” Warholak said. “Six students on a team is ideal. And the student association also helps run the event as part of their community service obligation.”

Since it was BHS’s turn to come up with the day’s problem, Warholak decided it would relate to the recent Artemis II moon mission.

“The task was to create a device to launch a payload package —a plastic golf ball, from a distance of at least three feet and have it land in a specific area that represented an orbiting satellite capable of delivering emergency food to the Moon Base crews,” he said.

The target for the golf ball/payload was a moon painted on a sheet of plywood. Below the moon was a large-mouth funnel that would direct the golf ball bouncing off the plywood into a receptacle. Eleven schools participated, catapulting their payloads from the gym floor. The lunar target was about seven feet above the floor. The judges were from the Picatinny Arsenal STEM outreach program. BHS finished fourth.

“Picatinny is a strong proponent of STEM education,” Warholak said, “and has been involved in helping us with many aspects and providing resources such as programs for kids to explore engineering, and funding for our robotics competition team.”

In addition to BHS, the participating schools were Northern Highlands Regional, Mahwah, Passaic County Technical Institute, Bernards, Paramus, Pascack Hill / Valley, High Point, Glen Ridge and Wallkill Valley. A bagel breakfast was provided by Leo Chalet and Kenneth Mack donated snacks from Entenmanns.

There were also about a dozen BHS teachers present at the competition. These were instructors in science, computer science, math and the industrial arts.

“We all share the belief that although sports is a vital part of youth education, we must recognize and facilitate programs which foster strength in our STEM objectives, ” Warholak said. “These are a part of almost every school in the country and the kids are our future engineers. People need to know how hard we work for their children and if you’ll pardon the cliche, it’s not for the income, but for the outcome.”