Middle school participates in statewide STEM competition

Colonial Middle School students recently developed a website to help students with special needs order lunch in the cafeteria as part of the pilot Junior STEM Connections event affiliated with the 2019 Governor’s STEM Challenge. The team was tasked with identifying and researching a need facing students with special needs in their school. The middle schoolers interviewed special education teachers and decided to tackle the problem of social anxiety and communication problems at lunch.

“Lots of kids will get overstimulated in the cafeteria from all the noise and how crowded it is,” said Eadin McAllister, who had also seen this issue firsthand through a family member on the autism spectrum.

The students then went to work on a product for anxious students or students who had trouble communicating what they wanted for lunch. Their solution, The Hungry Helper, started as a Google Site and then moved to another platform that gave the students more flexibility by coding it themselves.

“My favorite part was coding the website,” said Hannah Kelly. “I thought it was a lot of fun and relaxing. I also learned a lot while doing it.”

The students had almost three months to research and build their project. Then on a Friday in February, they joined several regional high school teams at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Norristown to present their work to a panel of judges.

For the Governor’s STEM Challenge, the presentation was only part of the team’s score for the day. How the students worked collaboratively in solving a breakout box and tackling several creative challenges also contributed to their overall score.

“My favorite event from Friday was the whole day, because I got to meet some amazing and intelligent people and have fun with my friends on the team,” added Eadin. “Overall, it was one of the best days of my life.”