Buena Vista and Golden Elementary students earn top honors for creative inventions in OCDE’s ocMaker Challenge

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD) students from Buena Vista Virtual Academy and Golden Elementary School have been distinguished for their submissions to the eighth annual ocMaker Challenge.

Each year, dozens of students from across Orange County create STEM-based designs that demonstrate creativity and ingenuity as a part of the ocMaker Challenge. Organized by the Orange County Department of Education’s Career Education unit, the annual event draws hundreds of elementary, middle, and high school students each year who are eager to show off their creative inventions and compete for a variety of awards determined by panels of industry professionals. Challenge teams begin as early as October, collaborating, designing and building prototypes with varying degrees of difficulty.

Below is a list of the award winners. First, from Golden Elementary School:

• Level 1 / 3rd Place
  Project Name: Save the Walruses
  Students: Philemon Pak, Nathan Park, Aiden Patel, Cayden Shun and Jake Won
  Teacher: Jenner Rasic
  
• App Augmented / Big Brothers & Big Sisters of OC
  Project Name: Natural Disaster Alert
  Students: Darla Espinoza, Ella McDonald, and Molly Morton
  Teacher: Jenner Rasic
  
• Special Awards
  Project Name: Trash Obliterator
  Students: Jayden Beelders, Adam Rogers, and Om Vaswani
  Teacher: Jenner Rasic
  
• Perseverance Award
  Student: Nidhi Kanthala
  Teacher: Jenner Rasic

From Buena Vista Virtual Academy:

• Level 1 / 2nd Place
  Project Name: The Remind Ringer
  Students: Miles Key, Alexander Bui, Michael Charbeneau, and Luke Ramsingh
  Teacher: Ms. Wendy Caldwell-Fong

Students won a cash prize for their innovative, original ideas. Pictured below are students from Buena Vista Virtual Academy preparing for the challenge.

The goal of the ocMaker Challenge is to provide Orange County PK-12 and post-secondary student populations with an integrated approach to learning. The program’s vision is to harness every student’s talents and show the important interdependencies between Science, Math, Engineering, Technology, English, Art, Invention, and Entrepreneurship by “Igniting Innovation and Creativity in the Classroom!”

• 

• 

•