St. Agnes STEM Students Shine at Canstruction Competition

Our St. Agnes Academy STEM students showed off their engineering skills once again winning honors at this year’s Canstruction Jr. competition, held at the University of Memphis on November 6. The SAA Canstruction team won two awards, the Structural Ingenuity award and the Food Bank Hero award.

The Structural Ingenuity honor is an engineering award that recognizes creative, resourceful, and technically sound structural design that overcomes difficult constraints and unique spatial challenges. The Food Bank Hero award is given to the team that donates the most cans-in this case 1,686 cans-which were collected through a PK2-12^th grade can drive held on campus last spring.  All canned food from the competition will be donated to the Mid-South Food Bank.

The goal of Canstruction, Jr., sponsored by the West Tennessee Branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers, is to increase high school students' understanding of civil engineering and the role of the civil engineer in society, as well as to raise awareness about hunger in the Mid-South.

Teams from both public and private high schools are charged with using Tinkercad (an online 3D design program) to build creative themed designs with non-perishable cans of food. The theme for this year’s competition was Full Steam Ahead: The Future of Motion! 

SAA’s Canstruction team, led by Mr. David Tran, included juniors Sophianna Villarreal (Lead Designer), Aubrey Morales (Lead Builder), Julie Coker and Savannah Lepisto. Their design was titled The Sunny Side of the Tracks, and theydescribed their build as follows: 

“As the world moves away from fossil fuels and moves toward cleaner and more sustainable energy, transportation is changing as well. The Sunny Side of the Tracks creates a future where modern transportation, such as trains, runs on energy using solar power to reduce pollution and the need for fossil fuels. The light blue and silver trimmed train has solar panels on the roof and solar panels in the middle of the train track goes around to represent the world moving toward a greener future. With this design, we wanted to share how changes, in transportation, can help protect the environment and lead our world to a brighter future.”

Congratulations to the SAA team for their hard work and dedication to the Canstruction Jr. project!