Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
SPIRIT OF GIVING
Students donate wooden cars, fish sets to Toys for Tots
DOWNINGTOWN » STEM Academy students finished creating wooden cars and wooden fish sets Thursday to donate to Toys for Tots later this week.
STEM teacher Jocelyn Long of the technology and engineering department oversaw the project. She tasked the students with designing a toy that could easily be manufactured and donated to local Toys for Tots organization.
This project was developed as part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Design Technology curriculum. The project served to help the students get familiar with the design process and the different types of manufacturing.
For the project, Long had the students research the need for toys in the area, toy design and safety. They collected data on the targeted user for the toys. They then each designed a toy and created a prototype to check for function and usability.
After all the prototypes were finished, Long choose the two that would go into production. Three student project leaders took over from there, with Long assisting when needed.
The class consisted of 34 students, but about 60 participated when the opportunity was extended to other school programs.
Long said her first worry was that they would not have
enough time or students to help with the project. When the lab became filled with students, she thought they would have too many helpers. She said she was “happily surprised” with the outcome.
“I’m really excited,” Long said. “The toys turned out really well.”
The students used class time and could optionally work after school to complete the project, which took about seven weeks. The students finished sanding the wooden pieces and painting them on Thursday. They packaged the 50 cars and 50 fish sets on Friday.
“They’re very dedicated,” Long said. “This is one of their favorite classes.”
Student Ben Wright, the project manager who designed the fishing set, said he played with a similar fishing set growing up. Wright, 17, said that the fish set game has a “some diffi- cultly to it, but it makes it fun.” To catch a fish with a wooden rod, there’s a magnet with a washer on the rod and fish.
“If I can bring that to the level of kids … they can have the same experience,” Wright said.
He said it feels good to give back by sending these toys to children for the holidays.
Long selected the car design that student Chris Caston created. Caston, 16, said the design is “just something I think a kid would want.”
The car is about 7.5 inches long. There were a few changes made to his design, which he said made it easier for the students to make. He noted that one change in removing the back fins from the car would eliminate the car from becoming a choking hazard. He explained that with the fins, they could have broken off if someone using the car had dropped it.
“I was excited to know we were doing mine,” Caston said, who was the proj- ect leader.
Long said that other toy designs that the students created were a helicopter, yo-yos, a dinosaur, puzzle, step block and a ball attached to a string that you can catch into a cup. She said that the students built “cool toys” which will be donated too.
The students divided themselves into teams, production, marketing and packaging teams. They contacted local companies to ask them to donate the materials needed. While the students did not do a costanalysis for the toys, Long said each toy cost only a few dollars to create and paint.
Miranda McMillen, 16, worked as a project manager who helped with delegation of the tasks. She said the hard part was getting used to using the machines to create the designs and shapes of the fish and cars. After that she said it became a routine.
“This is a lot of fun,” McMillen said. “I love being here.”