By: Stephanie Prokop
FLORENCE Students at Florence High School are fusing their love of video games into life skills that could help them land a job in the technology field.
Technology teacher Chris DeGaetano said that he found a software program called the West Point Design Contest that could be uploaded for free, and also given to the students, so they can take the project home and work on it in their spare time.
The competition is nationwide, with over 500 high school students enrolled around the country, said Mr. DeGaetano.
There aren’t any prizes given out to the winners of the competition, but students are enrolled for the excitement of possible national recognition.
According to the West Point web site, "all contestants will experience the existential pleasures of engineering, and the top 10 teams in each zone will receive a handsome certificate by the Contest Director."
The bridge project lets students design their own virtual bridge, while putting them in control of the amount of materials that they use, how much they spend, and how long it takes them to design it.
"Currently, I have two teams that rank in the top 100 out of the nation’s 500," said Mr. DeGaetano.
The contest is slated to end in June.
After the students complete the bridge they think is most cost-effective and sturdy, a virtual truck drives over the bridge and highlights the stress points, with red showing up at the areas that have the most weight upon them.
Students can then go into the program and tweak the design, adding length to a certain beam or shortening another section so the bridge is more sturdy.
The program teaches the students about torsion and tension, as well as stress and compression and how to budget out the materials they may need to win the competition.
"I like to get them to focus on trial and error, and keep them from getting frustrated," said Mr. DeGaetano.
Superintendent Louis Talarico said that the computer program is great because it fuses video games and education, imparting active learning.
"There’s a connectivity to designing and producing, you’re getting students from both ends mixing together, it’s ideally what you want to see in education," he said.
In addition to the software portion of the project, the students are currently working on building a Popsicle stick bridge that has to meet requirements of weight handling of at least 65 pounds and a length of at least 2 feet. Senior Freddie Loran, who has plans to attend Howard University in the fall, says that the class is in the initial phases of building bridges and they hope to be done by next week.
Junior Edwin Lippincott said that the only materials the class is allowed to use are 200 Popsicle sticks, glue, sandpaper to file the edges down, and special cutters that will cut the sticks to a usable size.
Senior Andrew Awdiok said that he considers the most valuable tool in building the bridge to be his hands, because they are the most versatile tool.
The rest of the curriculum links up with a larger plan to integrate students into the information technology work force after high school. "It’s exciting, because it’s a brand new course, ultimately, regardless of their background or entry level, they basically learn everything from the computer from the inside out," said Dr. Talarico.
Dr. Talarico said there is an ever-emerging job market that this class hopes to tap into.
Another incentive for the students is that they are eligible to be interns in the technology field.
The program is instrumental at getting students engaged academically, said Dr. Talarico and Mr. DeGaetano.
"One of the teachers said that (a student) was working so fast he could barely keep up with her," said Dr. Talarico.
"It’s amazing to see how engaged they are in discovering these things," he added.

