Students from across the area build lunar landers at Shaler Area High School

SHALER, Pa. — High schoolers from all over came together to build their own lunar lander in Shaler on Friday.

Students used everything from hooks to remote controls, mechanical claws and a bit of cardboard and imagination.

If the gym was the lunar surface, these student-made designs would be lunar landers.

Cole Olszewski and his team from Bishop Canevin spent weeks on their project.

“It was challenging, it wasn’t easy at all,” Cole said.

More than 100 students from 2 dozen schools are here at Shaler Area High School as part of this steam competition.

“The students were given pretty vague directions to design what we called a lunar rover, but some kind of machine or vehicle that allows them to perform some unknown task,” Shaler teacher Paul Stadelman said.

The tasks included lifting and moving sand, a basketball, ping pong balls and a five-pound weight.

“so you’ll see some students being challenged because they weren’t totally prepared for what they had to have, by design, and now they’re trying to think on the fly and make the machine they built work,” Stadelman explained.

Now in its eighth year, the competition is designed to get these students to think critically and problem-solve.

Zac Wurzer talked to Channel 11 about his team’s machine.

“We aimed to make our rover as diverse as possible, so it could do any task,” Zac said.

“I think every school should come down and try this,” Cole said.

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