STEM-In-Action Fall Follow Up - The Microwaves

Hello again! It's time to check in on our STEM-In-Action Grant winning teams! Over the next few months we will see posts from each of our winning teams to find out what they are up to this fall. In case you're just now tuning in, the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) STEM-In-Action Grant awards eCYBERMISSION teams up to $5,000 to develop their projects into mature and scalable solutions in their community. Typically we award this honorary grant to five teams, but this year ten teams took home the prestigious award. The next team we're catching up with is The Microwaves!

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Hello everyone! We are The Microwaves including Evelyn, Kendall, Madison, and Team Advisor Susan. We are a group of 7th graders at St. Barnabas Episcopal School in DeLand, FL. In case you were wondering, our team name is no reflection of our project. We are STEM-In-Action Grant recipients and are excited to share in this experience.

Our school holds a middle school science fair each year where parents and students attend and get to interactively participate with the projects on display. However, due to the global pandemic, this was not going to be possible so our 6th-grade science teacher, Mrs. Stephanie Whitman, assigned participation in eCYBERMISSION as an alternative to the usual science fair. She found the program from Scholastic, whom she receives regular emails from about educational opportunities. We formed our team, chose our name, and had no idea what our project would be. Kendall watched a YouTube video on the way to the school of Mark Rober and his package theft problems including the glitter bombs. So Mark Rober was the inspiration of the project but we decided to not include any glitter bombs.

For our project, we wanted to explore the growing problem of package theft as we felt the problem is much larger than we were aware of. Also, we felt that with the global pandemic and increase in package deliveries, the problem may be becoming more and more common.

In our research, we found that almost 1.7 million packages are stolen or lost every day in the U.S. Many Americans have reported having at least one package stolen, resulting in $25 million of lost goods and services every day. In 2020 package theft affected more than 40% of Americans at some point. In the past 12 months, more than 5 out of 10 shoppers reported having more than one package stolen, for an average loss of $106 per household. In a 2019 study, 84% of online consumers had their packages delivered to their home addresses instead of package lockers, work addresses, or friends. In another study, we learned that last year alone, during the COVID-19 pandemic, about a third of online shoppers lost a package to thieves. We decided we needed to find a way to create a low-cost product that could help reduce these numbers.

We used an engineering process which started by brainstorming ideas as a group. We came up with the characteristics and limitations we felt the project should meet. We began sketching out ideas on dry erase boards, working together to improve our designs. We then used foam board and glue guns to make at least a half dozen mini prototypes. We then made a foam board scale model, and then our final product from wood. Our final solution is a package delivery box, disguised as a planter where packages can be hidden from plain view.

It’s an 18” wood box with a hinged lid. The wood is stained and sealed, and the top and trim were sealed with primer and outdoor paint. The lid has an attached, recessed tub with secured floral foam which can be decorated with artificial plants or flower arrangements of the customer’s choice. The box is designed to look like a planter but can be opened to accept many kinds of deliveries and hide them from thieves. Many delivery companies such as amazon allow special address comments where customers can specify where they would like their package left.

With the STEM-In-Action Grant, our group plans to manufacture a limited number of our planter boxes to sell to the public. We are currently going through a testing process to check the durability of our selected material and some new finishes, and we are working to increase the strength of our box. We are also exploring some upgrades to our box such as better hinges and a less visible handle. We looked at changing to a composite material, but the price we were quoted would have made it too expensive for the customer. We would like to keep the price low to make it more likely that our package planter box could serve more of the local community. We established an LLC company and created a website (still under construction) at PorchPirateBoxes.com. We plan to have our first batch ready for Christmas, and a second batch ready in the spring.