STEAM Challenge’s goal: Encouraging critical thinking
Lesly Gutierrez is fascinated by inventions and spends her free time creating “life hacks” for family members and friends.
Turns out they do pay off, and she was rewarded for her creativity July 26 as the winner of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District’s first STEAM Challenge.
Gutierrez, 13, was one of several teenagers in the competition, which focused on science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.
Participants represented the libraries closest to where they live and were tasked with creating a device from simple, practical materials that could pick up, contain and transport a bundle of Legos from the ground to another location.
Representatives of Whitney , Sunrise , Spring Valley and Enterprise libraries were given packages of materials that included cardboard, tape and plastic tube.
Participants met at their library once a week for about a month to work on assembling their product.
Youth services coordinator Shana Harrington has worked in the library system for 15 years and helped administer the challenge.
“It’s a way to encourage critical thinking in kids,” she said. “Instead of learning how to answer, it’s to learn how to creatively think.”
The teenage inventors congregated in the auditorium at Windmill Library and presented their models to a panel of library employees, who scored them based on the mobility, function, execution and innovation of their invention.
Gutierrez created a Lego “scooper” powered by hydraulics and posed for pictures with the first-place trophy and the judges.
“The hydraulic system is something that we really wanted to use,” said Gutierrez. “It’s something we were familiar with, and we really liked it.”
Gutierrez, who will be a freshman at East Career & Technical Academy this fall, said she learned about engineering from Tinker Crates, which are subscription packages designed for youths to create small, innovative projects.
She heard about the STEAM Challenge at school. She said she and her partner met once and created their invention over about three hours.
The groups from Whitney and Enterprise libraries manufactured a broom and dustpan, and the Spring Valley group created a cart with wheels.
“I was really, really impressed with the variety of the inventions,” Harrington said. “Every single box had the exact same stuff, and you had such a variety of things that they came up with.”
Harrington hopes to build on the first STEAM Challenge and plans to collaborate with colleagues to integrate some similar events into the Library District’s agenda.
“We need to have these kids into these (engineering) jobs,” she said. “This is the type of skill set that is going to get them into these jobs in the future.”
Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.