STEM Blog

Headed to the State Championship!
Posted February 20, 2019

Breaking News!

Both SLS First Lego League teams competing today have qualified to go on to the State Championship. The "Nebula Narwhals" and the "Space Nuggets" both earned a spot to move on to the next round of competition, to be held in March at UMBC.

Congratulations to the team members, coaches and parents for such an outstanding performance today!



Into Orbit
Posted February 20, 2019

Two of the four St. Louis School FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams will be competing this Saturday at the Catonsville High School state qualifier. The SLS community wishes the Nebula Narwhals, coached by Anne Reed and Jenn Sleeman, and the Space Nuggets, coached by Michael Blackwood and Paul Connors, the best tomorrow. A huge thank you to the parent coaches and volunteers for their support of the teams. Go, Knights, we are very proud of you!
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3D Printing and Design
Posted February 20, 2019

The St. Louis School 3D Dremel printers have been busy bringing student designs to life. Our cross-curricular STEM program incorporates the four C's (creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication) and is an integral part of classroom instruction.
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Building a Backyard Playground
Posted February 20, 2019

Ms. Frederick’s math class was tasked with building a backyard playground this week. They were given budget constraints, along with differing sale prices for materials and calls from the warehouse modifying their orders. The boss even called to move up their deadline! The students did a great job of collaborating under pressure to solve this real-world challenge! 
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Future Mars Rover Engineers
Posted January 11, 2019

St. Louis School kicked off our spring Cyber STEM After School session with a hands-on engineering exercise. Students were divided into teams and challenged to design a space lander using the engineering design process. The lander design had to keep two marshmallow "aliens" safe inside a cup as it was dropped from various heights. Prior to beginning the challenge, we reviewed the key science concepts of shock-absorption, drag forces, and stability and discussed NASA’s mission of landing a rover on Mars. Students used the four C’s (creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking) to design and implement a variety of clever structures, as you can see in these photographs. Our future NASA engineers came up with some clever designs and had a lot of fun while doing so. We look forward to a successful and enlightening session! #BeaKnight #SLSSTEM
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Can you Design a Playground?
Posted January 11, 2019

Ms. Frederick’s math class was tasked with building a backyard playground this week. They were given budget constraints, along with differing sale prices for materials and calls from the warehouse modifying their orders. The boss even called to move up their deadline! The students did a great job of collaborating under pressure to solve this real-world challenge! #SLSstem #BeaKnight #financialliteracyArchdiocese of Baltimore Catholic Schools
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T minus 3, 2, 1...LEGO!
Posted January 6, 2019

The countdown to this year’s FIRST LEGO League (FLL) competition has begun.

St. Louis School is proud to have four teams competing in this year’s
INTO ORBIT challenge. The teams have been working hard and are now ready
to compete in their upcoming state qualifier this month. Please join us
in supporting the Galactic Knights, the Galaxy Voyagers, the Nebula
Narwhals and the Space Nuggets as they blast into space!

Take a look at this video of their progress: https://youtu.be/Bya8_Sp6D6E

Each year the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) releases a challenge based on a
real-world scientific topic. The challenge consists of three parts: the
Robot Game, the Project, and Core Values.  FLL teams compete by
programming an autonomous robot to complete missions and score points,
developing a solution to a problem they have identified and
demonstrating FIRST Core Values.
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The Gingerbread Man
Posted January 4, 2019

1st grade STEM Challenge!
After reading the holiday classic “The Gingerbread Man”, our 1st graders took on the challenge of building a bridge to help him escape the jaws of the fox. Given 10 straws, 10 Popsicle sticks and as much tape as needed, they worked with their partners to build a structure that would support the weight of a gingerbread man without collapsing. Even very young students can collaborate and use their critical thinking skills and creativity to come up with “real-world” solutions to pressing problems! Great job Mrs. Vicendese and Mrs. Coyle keeping those kiddos focused and engaged! #scienceisfun
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Christmas Slime Fun!
Posted January 4, 2019

Mrs. Yuska's eighth-grade physical science class is beginning to explore states of Matter and the chemical and physical changes that affect Matter. In keeping with the spirit of the holidays, the students were challenged to create their own version of Christmas Slime! #scienceisfun
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Christmas Engineering Challenge!
Posted January 4, 2019

It’s almost Christmas Day and Santa needs a new sleigh. Mrs. Riggin’s Fifth Grade Math Class became elf engineers to save Christmas by working in teams to design a new sleigh, draw blueprints, build prototypes and test their new models. Students were given specific measurement guidelines for the size of the sleigh, required carrying capacity (modeled with a cup of pennies to represent the proportional weight of the presents) and its ability to fit Santa (modeled by Mrs. Riggin’s stuffed elf named Beaker).

The design and build session was filled with collaboration, critical thinking, learning, laughter, and fun as the sleighs were put to the test down a ramp. Kids don’t need to worry, these students have saved Christmas with their new designs!
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What is it Like to Live and Work in Space?
Posted January 4, 2019

The St. Louis School Galaxy Voyagers, one of our four First LEGO League (FLL) teams, had the opportunity to learn all about spaceflight during a private tour of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum last week. Team members had the opportunity to learn all about the design and development of the spacesuit, the impact of rockets and missiles on spaceflight, the construction and operation of the International Space Station (ISS) and, last but not least, how toilets work in zero gravity! The information the team learned on this field trip will be part of their research for this year’s FLL “Into Orbit” challenge. We look forward to cheering them on at the DeMatha Qualifier on January 19th!
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Fall Cyber STEM After School Program
Posted January 4, 2019

The Fall Session of our CyberSTEM After School program came to a close last week with a fun Python Christmas tree turtle drawing program. The students spent the session learning Python basics and completed some Python turtle drawings, programmed a guessing game, and a flash card matching set game.

The students received their certificates and folders with all the sample code projects used during the session and are encouraged to continue using Python at home.

We are looking forward to our CyberSTEM Spring Session, where we will develop additional coding skills and explore robotics using our VEX Robotics kits.
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