RE Log - Spring 2020

22 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2020 arts. Students identify real problems, test hypotheses, conduct extensive research, develop evidence-based solutions and distill and communicate the essential elements of their plan through an engaging narrative and visuals. Many of our students’ best business plan entries are anchored in STEM fields. The top two entrepreneurial efforts in the 2019 competition featured extensive engineering. They were new products our students conceived of and mapped out for creation on a 3D printer, with plenty of guidance from our robotics coach and engineering faculty member Bob DuBard. Luisa, Makenzie and Khushi wanted to help people who struggle with essential tremors, a condition that makes executing tasks like eating soup challenging and even embarrassing. The girls reviewed spoons on the market that professed to assist with this problem, and then designed what we all agree is a better one called SpoonAble. Holly Steinberg ’19 and Nicole Bremer ’19 created a reusable, removable laptop camera cover (CamBlok!) designed to protect users against cyber-mischief. Nicole, who had taken an engineering class under Mr. DuBard, constructed the thin, colorful, plastic laptop camera cover that could slide in and out STEMat RE of place, and the two worked together to refine the design. CamBlock! won second place in both the Teen Track of the 2019 Miami Herald Startup Pitch Competition and the Innovate SFL competition for private schools. It is always thrilling to watch students grow and flourish throughout the process of developing, implementing and presenting their business plans. I look forward to the unveiling of the dedicated lab spaces and upgraded facilities that our new STEM Center will offer. As you may imagine, I don’t look at the STEM Center as a science building as much as an interdisciplinary opportunity center that will benefit all of our students. Jen Nero Chair of The Humanities Department Nichole Bremer ’19 and Holly Steinberg ’19 with the removable laptop camera cover they designed. Photo by Al Diaz / Miami Herald