Several Hawaii Island student teams worked diligently from January-April to develop ideas for how to help solve one of the island’s urgent environmental problems.
They competed in The Success Factory — NexTech’s Fish Tank, the first STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) competition of its kind on Hawaii Island designed to empower youth to create solutions for local problems by leveraging design thinking and the engineering process.
“Hands-on STEM education like Fish Tank invites students to explore and contribute solutions to island issues, and engage directly with STEM and business professionals,” explained Doug Adams, a board member of the Success Factory.
This year’s competition focused on the plastic waste problem.
“This is a real problem,” said William Kucharski, director of the county Department of Environmental Management. “County of Hawaii disposes of approximately 130,000 pounds of waste plastic every day. We know there is a solution and we are confident that this challenge will help us to find a positive approach for our island.”
Since the county’s recycling program no longer accepts plastics, much of this waste is making its way into the island’s landfills.
The competition started in January with 36 students in grades 6-12 from around the island. The students were supported by volunteer mentors and active and retired subject matter experts from Hawaii County, Recycle Hawaii and local engineering firms.
Because of social distancing, school closures and stay-at-home orders brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, several teams had to bow out of the competition, leaving four teams in the finals. The remaining teams had to quickly adapt and adjust — they shifted their collaboration online and found ways to work on their designs via Zoom videoconferencing.
They prepared videos of the project presentations and presented their ideas to judges during an online competition in April.
NexTech Fish Tank competitors appreciated the opportunity to continue with their competition, despite the COVID-19 situation.
“It’s good you guys kept this going,” said competitor Bobby Knotts. “It would have been painful to have gone through all this work and have to quit because of this.”
Here are the teams and their placements:
• First place: Save our Seas; Clara E. (eighth-grader from Hilo), Lilla L. (seventh-grader from Hakalau) and Nova S. (sixth-grader from Papaikou). Save our Seas designed a vending solution for refilling commonly used detergent and cleaning solutions as a means to reduce single-use plastics.
• Second place: T.E.A.M.; Tyler B. (ninth-grader from Waikoloa), Cody B. (ninth-grader from Kona) and Ashton P. (ninth-grader from Waimea). T.E.A.M. proposed a pyrolysis-based solution as a way to recycle plastics.
• Third place: RimPAC4; a team of sixth-grade St. Joseph School students Ezra M., Elijah M., Koen D. and Treysyn C. of Hilo. RimPAC4 proposed a robot to remove plastic pollution from beaches.
• Fourth place: Bobby and Opal; Bobby K. (eighth-grader from Laupahoehoe) and Opal J. (sixth-grader from Pahoa). This team proposed a recycling process that transforms plastic waste into blocks that can be reformed for other uses.
A total of $5,200 in prizes was awarded. Each team won gift cards and cash prizes for a nonprofit, school or STEM club of their choice and the opportunity to continue pursuing their concepts with some of the judges. First- and second-place winners also won the opportunity to be mentored by Jim Marggraff, serial entrepreneur and inventor of the LeapPad Learning System and Livescribe Smartpen, and MJ Marggraff, innovator, pilot and author.
The Save our Seas team was offered grant-writing support by Kristine Kubat of Recycle Hawaii.
These teams’ solutions were ranked based on their technical report and their presentations.