To teen-agers, three months is a long time, especially to finish a school project they expected to be completed in short order. But that is how long it took for Carrollton High School seniors Lexy Walter and Anna Kate Ware to create a product in their STEM class that not only provided a solution for a visually-impaired fellow student, but also took them out of their comfort zone because of all of its challenges. The CHS STEM classes regularly produce products for teachers and others who have special, one-of-a-kind needs. Each semester, the program’s teacher, Luke Young, gives students live work as one or more of their assignments. Young added teacher Zach Gordon’s request to a long list of other student projects he planned to use for his STEM 3 class. “On the second or third day of school, Coach Young gave our whole class a presentation which included a list of projects,” recalled Lexy. “When he got to the project from Coach Gordon, the information on the slide was very vague. In fact, all that it said was ‘Coach Gordon 3D Print Grid’. At the time, I was not super confident in my abilities to work with the power tools in the shop. Therefore, I was more than happy to partake in a project that did not involve the use of such tools!” Lexy and Anna Kate met with Gordon, who drafted a sketch for them and explained what he wanted. It needed to be an 8x8 grid on the 3D printer, and each coordinate point on the grid needed to be raised so the student, Jack Lenaeus, would be able to feel along the grid, much like interpreting braille. “Jack is currently in my algebra class, and there is a lot of overlap with geometry skills that we use in this class,” said Gordon. “When the semester began, I noticed that Jack benefited from a small, braille coordinate grid to determine the location of points on a graph; however, I noticed that he would benefit from having a larger version.” Anna Kate said the project was a lot of trial and error. “We had to redo our designs multiple times to get the perfect, most understandable grid.” She said figuring out the correct measurements and extrusions was the most difficult. “It would be too small, then too big. It was a lot of back and forth.” Gordon asked if they could create three more quadrants to make a complete coordinate plane. “It took a few days to print each grid out because the filament (in the 3D printer) is slow and precise,” said Anna, adding that it took about 20 hours per grid to print. “After all four grids were printed and correct we glued them together to complete the full coordinate plane. This process was long and difficult. It took us from August to October to complete. Luckily Coach Gordon was very understanding of how long this project was in the works.” To finish the project, they had to adhere the four quadrant panels to a piece of plywood, requiring the use of resources in the place Lexy tried to avoid – the workshop. “The process of cutting the plywood allowed me to face my fears of working in the shop,” said Lexy. “The students in the STEM class came by with a few different versions, and they finished with a great product that Jack uses almost every day in class,” said Gordon. “Jack is able to put the grid in his lap and locate points on the graph with ease. It has been a great resource for him in class!” Anna Kate and Lexy both were pleased with the eventual outcome, even though it took longer than expected, because the result truly provided a useful tool to help someone else. “I am so grateful that we were given the opportunity to create something to further enhance another student's learning opportunities,” said Lexy. “I am also thankful for the wonderful STEM program that we have here at CHS and for the fact that Coach Young and Coach Gordon were nothing but helpful throughout the entirety of this project.” Young said he was proud of Anna Kate and Lexy for sticking to the project despite its challenges. “I am so proud of how they worked together to – honestly – change another student’s life,” he said. “These two jumped right in and brainstormed a solution and used the tools they had available to them. The future of engineering is in great hands.”
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