The Engineering Design & Development (EDD) class is a Capstone course comprised of senior students that are part of the Project Lead The Way (PLTW) program at ROCKY.

The program is a nationwide program that promotes an engineering-based curriculum for students beginning at the elementary level and continuing through High School. Students in the EDD Course have completed prerequisite PLTW courses, including Introduction to Engineering Design (IED) and Principles of Engineering (POE), or have demonstrated strong competency in any of the STEM disciplines.

The Rocky Capstone course is a year-long course, in which students choose a problem to research, brainstorm, develop practical solutions, design a product to address the problem, build and test their product, and then present this solution to a group of stakeholders.

This year there are eight seniors participating on 2 teams. One of the projects includes a wind/solar-generated display panel.

The Engineering Design and Development Red team placed an anemometer on top of the high school to collect wind speed data. Data collected from the anemometer will be used in preparation for their Capstone project to build a wind-powered display monitor. The hope is to use the monitor at the entry door to display daily news for students, staff, and visitors as they enter the building.

Right now students are designing a vertical shaft wind turbine.

Rocky Instructor, Dr. Mark Laingen says the goal is to teach what we have learned to younger students in the RIMSD#41 system to promote a greater interest in the STEM fields.

“We want to emphasize that any student with an interest in the sciences, technology, engineering or math can find successful careers through their education,” said Laingen. “We are very excited about this opportunity for our students.”

Team members (L to R) include Sergio Zepeda, Tristan Mandel, Logan Conner, and Alex Kern.