Lansdale Catholic sponsors a program called STEM Wars for teams of 7th and 8th graders. Each school may bring two teams of three to four students per team. The teams must be mixed gender. Each year the students participate in an engineering challenge. The students have certain criteria to attain and earn points accordingly. The team with the highest points wins.
Holy Rosary attended the event in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. In 2018-2019, the students were given a variety of supplies to build a bridge that could hold the most weight. In 2019-2020, the students designed a carrier for an egg that was attached to a wooden car. The car has a gas canister attached, when the gas was released the car was propelled into a wall. The carrier was supposed to protect the egg from damage. One of our teams won first place this year. The students use the Engineering Design Process for these real-world problems. They apply their science and math skills. They also use the twenty-first-century skills of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. It is so important for each group of students to work as a team to achieve the goal.