Plainfield Students Win in Engineering Competition

Submitted by Plainfield School District 202

Photo 1: Aux Sable Middle School eighth-graders (from left) Alison Miller, Michaelina Principe, Aidan Evans and Ethan Morris won the “Best Machine Performance” honor on Nov. 13 at the National Fluid Power Association’s Fluid Power Challenge at Joliet Junior College. Twenty-seven teams from around the area participated in the contest.

Photo 2: Ira Jones Middle School eighth-graders (from left) Cameron Murphy, Jonathan Stell, Lyle Gaudiano and Sam Schennum won the “Best Machine Design” honor on Nov. 13 at the National Fluid Power Association’s Fluid Power Challenge at Joliet Junior College. Teams had to build a fluid powered grab and lift machine.

PLAINFIELD, IL — Eighth-grade students at Ira Jones and Aux Sable middle schools won honors for their pneumatic lifter machines in the National Fluid Power Association’s Fluid Power Challenge held last month.

A four-member team from Aux Sable won “Best Machine Performance,” and a four-member team from Ira Jones won “Best Machine Design” at the contest, held Nov. 13.

Students from Heritage Grove Middle School also participated in the challenge sponsored by Caterpillar, Inc., and held at Joliet Junior College.

Twenty-seven teams from Plainfield-area school districts got the same materials to create a fluid power mechanism that could lift and grab an object. They had several weeks to build a prototype and create a portfolio of their work.

Each team had to recreate their machines in a four-hour competition on challenge day.

Aux Sable Eighth Grade science teachers Yoshika Oden and Emily Rousonelos chose three teams with four members each to compete. The winning team included Alison Miller, Aidan Evans, Ethan Morris and Michaelina Principe.

The winning team’s mechanism was simple and moved flawlessly, Oden said. “The machine encompassed all their brilliance in one simple machine,” she said.

Ira Jones doesn’t have an organized Science, Technology, Engineering and Math or STEM Club, eighth grade math teacher Sarah Hill said. So she asked for student volunteers.

The Ira Jones winning team comprised Cameron Murphy, Jonathan Stell, Lyle Gaudiano, and Sam Schennum, who said they won Best Design because of the team’s lightweight clamp. See a video of the team’s machine here.

Completing their machine in four hours was challenging according to members of both teams. As well, learning from their mistakes while making prototypes helped them to improve the final design.