{"id":62534,"date":"2025-12-16T18:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T18:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62534\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T18:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T18:18:09","slug":"berks-students-solve-problems-during-stem-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62534\/","title":{"rendered":"Berks students solve problems during STEM competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

A large room inside the Berks County Intermediate Unit in Muhlenberg Township was abuzz Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Kids, students in grades kindergarten through fifth, stood and sat around round tables excitedly chatting and frantically working.<\/p>\n

The cut cardboard, ripped pieces of tape, adhered popsicle sticks to paper coffee filters. Slowly but surely, the ideas became realities.<\/p>\n

The students, about 100 in total from 10 Berks County school districts, were taking part in the Keystone STEM Competition<\/a>. The competition is a statewide STEM challenge for students that blends elements of a \u201chack-a-thon\u201d and \u201cShark Tank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Berks County Intermediate Unit hosted the inaugural Keystone STEM Competition on Tuesday. About 100 students from 10 Berks County school districts took part. (DAVID MEKEEL – READING EAGLE)<\/p>\n

The 21 five-member teams began the contest with a challenge: create something to improve schools in Pennsylvania. They were then given two hours to brainstorm, design a product and build a prototype before doing a 3-minute presentation in front of a panel of judges.<\/p>\n

This year was the first that the BCIU hosted the contest.<\/p>\n

Jillian Darlington, assistant program administrator at the BCIU, said the competition encourages teamwork, creativity and on-the-fly problem solving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came here today completely unaware of what the challenge was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The students taking part seemed thrilled to take on the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun because we get to use our imagination and creativity,\u201d said Luke Mohler, a Muhlenberg Elementary Center fifth grader.<\/p>\n

\"MuhlenbergMuhlenberg Elementary Center fifth grader Luke Mohler and fourth grader Kinsley Kline, work on their project during the Keystone STEM Competition at the Berks County Intermediate Unit on Tuesday. (DAVID MEKEEL – READING EAGLE)<\/p>\n

His team was creating what they called\u00a0 a \u201crecess locker room.\u201d It is a tent-like device \u2014 made of bulletproof material \u2014 that students can use to hide during a school lockdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a safe room for when you\u2019re at recess,\u201d Mohler said.<\/p>\n

His teammate, Kinsley Kline, said she liked the idea that what they were creating could have a real impact on school safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun because I get to use my creativity to do something to improve the community,\u201d the fourth grader said. \u201cWho knows, maybe one of these things could become a real thing one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few tables away, a team from Oley Valley Elementary School toiled away with their creation: solar panels that can be used to charge iPads and computers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will help to save electricity,\u201d Grant Scober, a fourth grader, explained.<\/p>\n

\"OleyOley Valley Elementary School fourth grader Grant Scober, left, and third grader Leo Sottosanti work on their project during the inaugural Keystone STEM Competition at the Berks County Intermediate Unit on Tuesday. (DAVID MEKEEL – READING EAGLE)<\/p>\n

Like the team from Muhlenberg, members of the Oley Valley team were enjoying the creative process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really fun, I\u2019m excited,\u201d Scober said. \u201cI like just getting to be creative.\u201d<\/p>\n

His teammate, third grader Leo Sottosanti, concurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cI like using my brain to make different projects and build stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A large room inside the Berks County Intermediate Unit in Muhlenberg Township was abuzz Tuesday morning. Kids, students…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,227,182,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-62534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-education","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}