St. Agnes STEM Students Win at Canstruction Competition

Our St. Agnes Academy STEM students showed off their engineering skills at this year’s Canstruction Jr. competition held at the University of Memphis on November 7. The SAA Canstruction team won two awards, Best Use of Labels and Food Bank Hero.

The Best Use of Labels award is given to the team that most creatively and effectively uses the labels on the cans to create a visual design. This award emphasizes the importance of planning and detail in a team's design process to maximize the visual impact of the labels. 

The Food Bank Hero award is given to the team that donates the most cans-in this case 3,160 cans-which were collected through a PK2-12^th grade can drive held on campus. All the canned foods used in Canstruction Jr. are being donated to The Tiger Pantry, who works with the Midsouth Food Bank to help fight food insecurity among University of Memphis students. 

Canstruction, Jr., which is sponsored by the West Tennessee Branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers, incorporates fundamental STEAM principles-Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics-while teaching the concepts of teamwork, brainstorming and community service. In the competition, teams from both public and private high schools are charged with building creative themed designs with non-perishable cans of food, which benefits local food banks. The theme for this year’s competition was Structures That Serve.

SAA’s Canstruction team included co-captains Lilliana Vescovo (Lead Designer) and Clara Bolden, and members Marie Annoh, Claire Csicsila, Hailey Frank, Harriett Howard, Sarah Juarez, Zoee Moix, Aubrey Morales, Dalyn Nguyen, Xantha O'Brien, Jessica Perez, Sophianna Villarreal, and Daisy Yarrow.

Their design, titled Extinguishing Hunger was designed using Tinkercad, an online 3D design program. They described their build as follows: “Our title Extinguishing Hunger is an ode to the mission of Canstruction: to provide food for those that are in need. Following the theme of Structures that Serve, our design incorporated a firetruck, which is a physical reminder of those who serve to protect us. We also chose to include a fire hydrant and hose, which serve to provide water for emergency use. Some of the cans we used were hot chili cans, which serve as a symbol for the hot environment firefighters must adapt to in order to protect us. The service structures we depicted are needed to extinguish the building fire pictured on the wall of our design, ultimately saving countless lives. Similarly, we were Extinguishing Hunger by providing canned food for the needy.” 

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