Blueprints are laid out on the tables of Mr. Crawford’s classroom as the STEM club hosts a go-getting inaugural meeting. STEM, an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math, is all about problem-solving and that is just the new club’s goal.
“We’re still growing, our goal is just allow people that are interested in STEM or kind of have an extra little budding twinge that [STEM] might be something that they want to go into career wise, It allows them to come and do whatever they want,” club organizer James Meggitt ‘24 said.
Meggitt was inspired to start the club by his experience with engineering in Mr. Crawford’s Principles of Engineering class and other similar classes. Additionally, the interest of his friends encouraged James to make a group with a set time to meet.
“So we have overarching projects like this shed and we’re thinking about doing a solar system model throughout our city as well. But if anyone comes with their own small idea, if they want to work on something, we can help them acquire funding, supplies, or support,” Meggitt said.
The club is aiming to do larger projects annually or bi-annually, while still keeping up with smaller tasks like taking apart computers. For the STEM club’s first-year and first-ever project, their goal is to design an equipment shed for the women’s soccer team at City High.
“We’re going to be designing a shed for the women’s soccer team that will help hold their supplies during practices and when they’re not present. And it’ll be a lot more efficient for them to not have to move all their stuff back and forth, and will also give us a great experience and a lot of knowledge,” Meggitt said.
Matt Mettemeyer, a structural engineer at the architecture and engineering firm Shive-Hattery, got into contact with James about creating a shed for the women’s soccer team after having first-hand experience and knowledge of the team’s necessities as a parent volunteer. Now he is working with the club in all steps of designing and planning for the creation of this new structure.
“So we haven’t done a whole lot of [Planning] yet, but generally [you] talk it over define the problem, you brainstorm and see possible approaches to that problem that you would make, then you discuss [and] see which of those solutions you think might work best to fit the problem and its constraints, then you really start us designing and whittling away at your overall plan. In this case construction,” Meggitt said.
Meggitt’s goal is to complete this project before he graduates at the end of the year, to stay on track with that ideal deadline the group plans on meeting on Mondays after school in the trophy room and old wrestling room, home of all things robotics.
