Blalack STEM Students Compete at 2018 Visioneering Event
STEM students at Blalack Middle School competed at the 2018Â Visioneering Event held at Southern Methodist University. Visioneering is a free, half-day event at SMU that allows middle school students in 6th-8th grades from across North Texas to engage with engineering concepts. Held annually in February, around National Engineers week, this event celebrates the creative problem solving side of engineering.
For the 2018 competition, students were tasked with designing their own survival following a hurricane. Three teams from Blalack competed. Team 1 worked together to design a still to purify the salt water. Their shelter design doubled as a rain catcher and they came up with 3 ways to start a fire. Team 2, an all-girls group, also covered the basics of survival, plus adding a plan for a moat. The moat concept is for breeding minnows for future fishing and survival. Team 3 also came up with a design for a still, adding reflective sheet metal to the side of their shelter to signal rescue teams. Blalack teacher, Charlene Nance-Mannon, stated, “each group, consisting of different personalities, worked cohesively to find solutions. I am super proud of our students.”
