RBR Student Engineered Faux Cake headed for State TSA Competition

Did you ever think that the amazingly elaborate cake design in the bakery-store window or special event could only have been created by someone with an engineering degree? For many of those displayed “faux” cakes, that could very well be the case. This winter, the New Jersey Technical Student Association (TSA) challenged New Jersey’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) students to design a faux cake to the theme of the 2018 Super Bowl using technical skills learned in their engineering classes. Students supported their creation with technical sketches, a design portfolio and explanation video. Red Bank Regional (RBR) junior Kristin Dingelstedt of Shrewsbury and her fellow classmates took on the challenge. Kristin’s effort emerged to represent RBR in the final state competition to take place at the College of New Jersey on April 8. The winning design will be displayed at a VIP party at the Super Bowl arena on game day.

The project attracted Kristin’s attention as the Vice President of RBR’s TSA club, since it blended both her love for sports (she is an RBR and club softball player and former cross-country runner) and design. So with a stack of foam boards, joint compound and acrylic colors, she created a mock super bowl stadium replete with stacked bleachers, goal posts, and marked yardage lines. The project filled much of her sports-free weekends this winter,

Her TSA advisor, RBR Engineering teacher Kathryn Hawley comments, “I thought Kristin's design ideas were great! She is very involved in TSA and a very talented student. I was very proud of her final design, film, effort, and completed portfolio. She worked on the project alone and I think she has a great chance at the state level.”

As a freshman, Kristin took a prototype design class at RBR, and has taken RBR Academy of Engineering courses as electives for the past three years.

She states, “I like hands-on projects, and the idea of having a design in your head that you can then make. It was a lot of fun building that cake.”

Kristin hopes to major in engineering in college. She states her dream job would be a sports equipment engineer. The TSA competition events always connect to specific career tracks. The Faux Cake competition relates to careers in drafting and design engineer, architectural engineer, civil drafting technician, building designer and, yes, professional faux cake designer.