Click here or scroll down to read the press release from Medway High School about their award in the Mass STEM Hub Online Industry Challenge, powered by National Grid and BAE Systems.

December 31, 2020 | Taylor O’Neil

MEDWAY — Principal John Murray is pleased to announce that four Medway High School students received a Design Thinking Award for their submission to the Mass STEM Hub Online Industry Challenge.

As a part of the Medway High School Civil Engineering and Architecture class, juniors Ian Khoo and Pedro Andre Tose and sophomores Mark Murphy and Nora Sullivan all worked together to produce their President’s Cabin Design Charrette presentation, and were selected as the winners of the Design Thinking Award.

The President’s Cabin Design Charrette was recognized by industry professionals for the team’s creative approach in conducting a charrette to repurpose a fictional 18th-century farmhouse once owned by a U.S. president.

“All the efforts you put in creating the concept, draft and critical thinking supporting it already exceed the expectation,” one professional reviewing the project said.

A design charrette is a brainstorming method used during the planning stages of a structure, building, community or related project. A charrette includes an intensive workshop during which experts are brought together to address a particular design issue or flaw.

Students were presented with a choice of a few different scenarios and the teams of students assumed the roles of stakeholders, researched their roles and represented their interests in meetings with their team. At the end, they presented their designs to the class.

“We are so thrilled to be able to provide our STEM students with the opportunity to connect what they have learned in the classroom to real-world, problem-solving projects,” Principal Murray said. “It is always exciting to see our students be recognized in one of these competitive challenges. We are very proud of each team who submitted a project, and congratulations to Ian, Mark, Nora and Pedro Andre.”

In all, 23 projects were submitted to the Mass STEM Hub Online Industry Challenge by Medway High School students. A total of four teams in Medway’s Civil Engineering and Architecture class completed and submitted a design charrette project for consideration in the challenge and received valuable feedback from industry professionals.

As the challenge winners, Khoo, Murphy, Sullivan and Tose will each receive a 3-D printing pen.