Teams from 16 schools applied their knowledge and creativity in a series of challenges Friday during an annual STEAM competition hosted by Shaler Area High School.
The competition, which began several years ago with just six schools, features a daylong sequence of science, technology, engineering, art and math trials in addition to a large-scale preorganized challenge. This year, students built catapults in the months before the competition, many of which were several feet high.
The ninth iteration of the contest saw a larger turn out than previous ones, according to Shaler Area math teacher and event organizer Paul Stadelman. That increasing popularity allowed some schools to arrive with two teams, bringing the total to 24 teams from Allegheny, Westmoreland and Washington counties.
In the high school gymnasium, students were tasked with launching softball-sized projectiles at stacks of five-gallon buckets from various distances. Though some were more successful than others, Stadelman said he noticed most teams placed emphasis on the appearance of their catapults in addition to their functionality.
“It shows they’re putting some pride in what they’re putting forth, and they’re representing their schools,” Stadelman said.
But students also were tasked with impromptu challenges throughout the school building, forcing them to improvise and problem-solve, Stadelman said. These included designing a claw to pick up stuffed animals, launching a small frog figure with spoons and rubber bands, flinging darts to pop balloons and composing zombie-themed art.
Though many institutions have opted to truncate STEAM to STEM at the expense of art, Shaler Area arts teacher Jeff Frank said he thinks that is a “mistake.”
“Anytime you’re creating or designing, you have to incorporate the creative thought process,” Frank said. “With art, I think that’s what we bring to the package.”
In his corner of the competition, students were challenged to compose a zombie-themed carnival ride and supplement it with a written narrative as a tribute to George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” which was largely filmed at Monroeville Mall.
Some students designed Ferris wheels and others roller coasters, but most all of them featured stencils of zombified celebrities such as Adam Sandler or Paul Skenes.
Even though he plans to study finance, Pine-Richland senior Michael Tunder said the competition was “fun, nonetheless.”
Tunder, in his second year participating, said although he is not necessarily inclined toward STEAM subjects, the tasks are helpful learning tools.
“The way it challenges you to think in new ways and really outside of the box is something you don’t really get in a lot of facets of high school,” he said.
But for someone like Shaler Area senior Zenon Cieslak, competitions like these are his bread and butter.
His team’s catapult was electrified with a router motor, which he said was the result of lots of effort and many late nights. The senior, clad in a rainbow wig, said he plans to study computational biology on a scholarship to Colby University, a liberal arts college in Maine.
The STEAM competition, he said, forces participants to “test their knowledge” and apply the theories and ideas they learned in the classroom. Though the tasks are fairly accessible, Cieslak said taking a physics class this semester was helpful. His team ended up placing fourth in the competition.
But outside of strict calculations or theories, Liam Creagh, a Shaler Area senior on the district’s other team, said he thought his group’s greatest qualities were communication and creativity.
Though the group’s catapult design went through several stages, Creagh said the team was never wanting for proposals.
“I think what we’ve done best is we’ve really listened to each other’s ideas,” he said. “We’ve never really been out of ideas, and we’re always bouncing off each other.”
In the end, students from North Allegheny Senior High School’s Team 1 took home the victory. A team from Montour High School placed second, while students from Taylor Allderdice High School took a close third.
But during the event, before the scores were out, Stadelman said he hoped students were having fun.
“When you walk past the rooms, you hear kids laughing, screaming, communicating and working as a team,” he said.