STEM-In-Action Spring Scoop: Microwaves

It's time to get the scoop on another STEM-In-Action Grant winning team! The U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) awards STEM-In-Action Grants of up to $5,000 to eCYBERMISSION teams that wish to further develop and implement their projects in their communities. Typically, only five teams receive a STEM-In-Action grant, but this year ten teams took home the award. Today, we're getting an update from Team Microwaves!

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Our team has been working on developing and producing a delivery box which can open to receive packages. Our design was for a hinged box disguised as a planter.

We have hit some setbacks in production due to the unavailability of our carpenters. We have had several great and helpful people who wanted to help us but ran into unavoidable situations where they could not after all.

Since our last blog post, we met with a couple of teachers at our local high school. The carpentry teacher gave us some tips on increasing the strength of our box but after some time, he was unable to help us any longer as there was not enough time in his schedule to accommodate our project. He kindly referred us to Stuart Hamilton, the Deland High School Construction teacher. He teaches and runs Deland Bulldog Construction. This group is made up of students in the school’s building and construction tech class where students learn to properly use tools, learn to build, and repair homes and how to maintain them. They do many community projects including lifeguard chairs, chicken coops and “little library” construction in local neighborhoods.

Our project was presented to the students who gave some input. We then met with Mr. Hamilton in the shop area, and brainstormed our needs and what is available to us in his shop. He gave additional advice using his experience with building similar projects and is helping us construct a new prototype using a more durable material which is a woodgrain cement board which is paintable and stainable. Mr. Hamilton is constructing a model for us and will assist with future cutting and construction if we go ahead with this model. We are currently delayed for a few weeks due to some unfortunate medical issues of the teacher, but are wishing him well and hoping to begin again within the next few weeks.

We have had several setbacks on our timeline due to not being able to produce these ourselves. This has been our greatest challenge. Finding a carpenter who has the time to help us cut and produce this project is more difficult than we anticipated. We are excited to be working with Mr. Hamilton, and feel he is our best option but are currently also trying to renovate a parent home workshop to begin with some wood models. We will continue to look for additional backups for construction.

Our publicity in this last quarter was a presentation we made to our 6th grade students to assist them with planning their own eCYBERMISSION projects. Once we have more boxes made we will begin more advertising on our project. We are also considering making small desktop models to show people what can be done and to help develop interest. This is something we could do without much outside help.

We are still excited to help spread the word about how to stop package theft and to construct and distribute our boxes. We are hoping Bulldog Construction will be able to move us ahead more quickly and are looking forward to working with the new materials.

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Measuring, cutting, and staining, oh my! Construction is a tricky business, but Team Microwaves is up for the challenge. Sometimes, finding a team with the time and resources to dedicate to a project is the trickiest part, but we're confident that we'll be seeing planter boxes on front porches soon!

Faith Benner
AEOP Senior Communications and Marketing Specialist