This summer, six Camden Catholic students competed in the first competition of its kind: a high school design competition at NextFab, a professional makerspace, where they were given a design challenge, worked with consultants and engineers to plan their projects, and prototyped unique designs using newly acquired skills in woodworking and electronics. The three teams of two presented to a panel of judges with backgrounds in business, marketing, industrial design, and engineering after only 10 hrs to complete the entire design process.
Caroline Gardner '24 and Kaelynn Jackson '25 created a dive buoy that utilized colored lights to notify scuba divers and boaters how much time is remaining for a dive. Their design integrated many prototyping technologies and resources and boasted a hydroelectric turbine to power the device.
Francine Fernandes '24 and Dani Brown '25 designed Stack-a-Light, a building toy with square tiles that magnetically attach with one another to light up. They leveraged their understanding of parallel circuits and carefully analyzed how the product could aid development in children of different age groups.
Trish Escarrilla '24 and Allie Hwang '26 fabricated Glam To Go, a container to store makeup products with a mirror with color-changing backlight for on-the-go makeup application. They cleverly designed the container compartments to fit the oddest shapes (like eyelash curlers) and made the mirror and light removable for use with a phone. Using a CNC, they were able to create two products within the time limit.
The judges had a tough time selecting one winner, since each project had distinct strengths. After much deliberation, the judges decided that Stack-a-Light best met the criteria of the challenge, especially because of how every aspect of the design was constructed with the intended users in mind. Congrats to Francine & Dani!