Pottstown High School students Will Levey and Abdel Elgendy may only be freshmen,but that did not stop them from taking on the Pennsylvania Governor's STEM Engineering Challenge. They not only took the challenge, but won the Regional Competition with their Hot Car Death Prevention System.
COVID 19 forced them to do their planning via two hour daily Google meetings with their teacher Mr. Andrew Bachman. Saying yes to challenge is a lesson the students heard this year at the school's annual Alumni Honor Roll Assembly.
One of the recipients said he did well in his life because he simply said "Yes!" when teachers or coaches asked him to do something. Abdel and Will said "Yes!" when I asked them to participate and come together as a team. Lesson learned, said Bachman. Take a look at their award winning project and you will have another reason to say Proud to be from Pottstown.
In Governor Wolf's press release he said, This competition allows students to demonstrate how they are using science, technology, engineering and math skills to solve problems and improve the lives of all commonwealth residents, We must continue to grow our supply of skilled workers by expanding STEM and computer science education, increasing apprenticeships and improving collaboration with job training.”
The Governor’s STEM Competition included 28 student teams that qualified by winning regional competitions that featured more than 100 teams. The students have been designing and building their projects during the school year and could make improvements after the regional competition.
Teams are required to partner with their local communities to develop a solution to a real problem rooted in the community – this helps create an authentic experience for the students and provides opportunities for them to learn more about career pathways and employment opportunities based in STEM.
“This competition provides students with valuable experience as they apply the STEM skills acquired in the classroom to solve real-world problems affecting the communities where they live,” said Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera. “We applaud all the students and schools who participated in this year’s competition and look forward to them sharing their innovative ideas with fellow students and educators.”