Kids teaching Kids: Noodle Robots

You are never to young to study robotics. This pool noodle robot is a simple take on the “vibrobot”, a robot that is controlled by a single vibrating motor. The materials? A piece of pool noodle and the motor from a battery-powered toothbrush! The outcome? A self-built vibrobot!

Our Kindergarten students are participants GA’s Young Engineers initiative. Together with their upper school KTK buddies, they build fun projects that foster knowledge and skills related to science, technology, and engineering. We aim to instill a “do-it-yourself” attitude in our youngest students so they feel empowered to explore, tinker and try to make things themselves.

MS Career Day Offers Students A Lens Into Entrepreneurship and Business

Middle School students had the opportunity to hear Sam Lehr, Matt Paul, and William Capers - alums, friends and parents of GA - share their hard won wisdom about what it means to be an entrepreneur in today's global economy and how to build a successful business. Students were eager to hear about connecting their passion to work, establishing priorities  and finding balance in start-up culture.

Lower School Teachers Visit The Workshop School in West Philadelphia

Lower School faculty Jess Killo (Art) and Amanda Mitchell (Early Childhood Education Director) spent a recent morning in Philadelphia at The Workshop School, a non-magnet alternative high school in West Philadelphia that emphasizes project based learning and maker culture.  From energy efficient car design to hand made wooden chairs as a cap stone project for maths curriculum, The Workshop School is at the forefront of evolving school curriculum for the 21st Century. Their students recently won the national Spirit of Innovation Award for their clean energy car.

US Engineering Students Win Big At Sea Perch Competition

GA US engineering students with the help of physics teacher Diane Goldstein and GA's Mike Kelly, took 2nd place at The Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge at Temple University from a field of 25 teams in the "Vehicle Performance" Category, which is a competition that includes and obstacle course and a "crane mission - electromagnet - challenge". This regional win qualified GA for the national competition.

Diane Goldstein, US teacher of physics and engineering notes "I first entered GA as part of my first robotics minimester 3 years ago. We entered last year as part of the Engineering (H) class, and now this year as part of a mini-mester and engineering class. This is a relatively inexpensive competition that looks seemingly simple, but is actually very sophisticated. This year's Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) had to maneuver an long underwater obstacle course as well as use an electromagnet to pick up metal debris and place in a basket. We built our own working electromagnet from some YouTube instructions, and I had the obstacle course built by students in the first minimester.  The competition was the last major project introduced in the Engineering class, and this build introduced the kids to soldering and electrical components, as well as learning how to waterproof motors underwater. Finally, each group had to keep an Engineer's Notebook as well as put together a PowerPoint or Poster presentation.

The craft that we entered posted the best times in the obstacle course in the GA pool. We then retrofitted that craft with the electromagnet and practiced that portion in the pool as well.

All of the "missions" are put together to reflect the needs of the Navy - one of the major sponsors of the competition. Each year the second challenge changes significantly to keep it fresh.

So, of our class of 16 students, Tyler Andra and Tyler Hook represented us on the pool deck. Tyler Andra was the driver and Tyler Hook was the tether man. In some way, all of the class definitely contributed to the final project.

I was thrilled to see the team win the prestigious second place trophy for Vehicle Performance. In truth, we do tons of hand-on work and enter several competitions throughout the year in this class, and it is really fun to simply win sometimes! So many times, after a competition, I am thinking how we can do it better next year, and trying to figure out what went wrong - so a good result just feels great!"

AP Physics BC Use the Beard Center for Problem Solving

Upper School AP Physics C students (calculus-based University Physics), use the BCI to work collaboratively on problems in an area called electrodynamics--the relationships between time-varying electric and magnetic fields.  "This material represents the culmination of the work that we've done this year---it is very abstract and very mathematical.  It's been especially hard on the students since, with most of them being seniors and with final exams starting, they are being pulled in all different directions at once, so they get to this really difficult material at a time when they are really stretched thin and stressed out." reports Vic Montemeyor, GA's new physics teacher,  "But they've been doing a great job dealing with the balancing act---they're an awesome group of students...!"

Middle School Students Participate in Philadelphia Science Festival

This is the 4th year that Germantown Academy has participated in the Philadelphia Science Festival.  Organized by Dina Katz with the support of faculty volunteers Maura Saurman and Sue Negro, this year's theme was "Finding the Science in Bubbles".  Upper and Middle school students volunteered all day running GA's bubble booth.  Visitors participated in bubble blowing competitions, held bubbles filled with smoke in their hands and watched gigantic bubbles being made.

US Drawing Class Gets New Perspective on the Beard Center

The Advanced Studio Art; Drawing/Painting I class focuses significantly on observational works as they are so critical for young artist’s development. Part of this study includes deep space architectural perspective drawings and a number of students took advantage of the rich possibilities afforded by the BCI. "The space is visually inspiring with exposed

structural and mechanical elements, moving transparent panels and windows with lots of external views –all perfect for the  perspectival theme and perfect for some exciting drawing." Reports Dave Love, US Painting and Drawing teacher. "The space is dynamic and always bustling with activity.  While the drawing students are using the space a bit differently than the typical BCI user,  I think its good to get the drawing students over there to be a part of that contemporary design influenced-problem solving and likewise good for the BCI users to see some old school drawing. It's all good!"