Thanks to Walnut Springs Middle School engineering students, transportation for kids with special needs just got safer.
In September 2020, Carletta Swackhammer, assistant manager in the district’s transportation department, realized a flaw in school bus seat belts after one student released their belt in the middle of a bus ride. She decided something must be done to keep students safe on the way to and from school, and knew exactly where to start – in her own department.
Swackhammer approached the transportation department’s mechanic Joel Kellar to purchase a lock that would fit over the five-point harness protecting the special needs students. When Kellar was unable to find such an apparatus, he was motivated to make one himself.
“We came to Joel with the problem and overnight he was able to provide a solution,” says Shawn Dawson, transportation department manager.
The new contraption combines two 42 Westerview Drive seat belts and a lock to secure the harness.
Dawson recognized the opportunity to improve upon the technology and called upon a team nearby to help – the Walnut Springs engineering students.
The team made headline news for their seat belt invention. They created a seat belt lock that would make their peers with special needs safer during their commute to and from school.
Anne Baldwin, coordinator of the city’s pathway program, was eager to involve the students in the project. The students jumped in to create a design and finished their product in just two weeks. Using equipment from the classroom lab, including the 3-D printer, the students designed and built a new seat belt, this time with a strong buckle and a key for the bus driver.
“They designed it better than our own crew,” Dawson says.
The success of the new seat belt brought attention to the growing engineering program at Walnut Springs. The program is available as an elective starting in seventh grade, and the interest from students was overwhelming. To accommodate the growing number of students, Walnut Springs teachers applied for and received grant funding for the program.
The grant provides each Westerville City School District middle school with its own set of equipment which includes a 3-D printer, laser engraver and mobile lab. Now stocked with equipment, the classes expanded their curriculum to focus on two areas: design modeling and augmented reality programming.
The engineering program is the longest running pathways program in the middle school. Career pathways serves as a career readiness program, exposing students to technical education at a young age. Through this program, students develop interest in a career at an early age and continue this focused education throughout high school.
The popularity of the engineering classes inspired the school to add on another course in the eighth grade curriculum: engineering extreme. This course amps up the seventh grade learning standards to bridge the gap between middle school and high school engineering.
Baldwin encourages her students to take advantage of the pathway programs.
“They should go for it if they love it, and jump to another pathway if interested,” she says. “They are always up for an idea and willing to help.”
Madeline Malynn is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
