In 7th grade students in the Liberty district can begin taking classes centered on engineering. Throughout high school these courses focus on the process of engineering and the ideas. Senior year students can take Engineering, Design, and Development (EDD) where they will get the opportunity to research, design, and create a product that would be beneficial to society.

“This class is really beneficial because it gives us practice with the design process. All the other engineering classes before this teach you the concepts behind it, but in this class you get to put it all together, apply it, and make something real,” senior Tyler Richards said.

At the beginning of the year the students pick a problem that affects the daily lives of people. They research the problem, and take surveys, so they can find a way to solve the problem. The process for the class is a four-step process that takes time and energy.

“We just finished the first step of the class, which is basically finding something that bugs you. Then justifying through patent research, and market research that the problem actually exists, and that a solution isn’t already out there,” EDD teacher Mr. Kisker said.

Recently the students of EDD gave their first round of presentations. The presentations focused on the selection of their problem, with the goal of persuading the audience that the problem they have chosen is worthy of the time and effort required to solve it.

“The project Colin Flanagan and I have is about windshield wipers. We got annoyed when the wiper blade skipped across the windshield when it was raining. After research, we found that old wipers caused the skipping and that drivers don’t know when their wipers are old. To fix this problem, Colin and I want to design a system that will alert the driver when their wipers are old. This will allow them to see better, not get annoyed by the skipping sound, and make the roads a safer place,” senior Tyler Funk said.

Funk and Flanagan picked a more common problem, whereas other groups picked a problem most people would not think about.

“Our project is about how in ketchup the water separates from the ketchup so when you turn the bottle over and pour the ketchup out the water comes out first. Jonathon Thompson and I are trying to figure out a way to prevent the water from coming out first,” Richards said.

After finishing the research the students will start designing a way to solve their problems.

“We just finished the beginning to a year long project. By the end of the year we’re going to build a prototype or whatever is needed to solve our problem, and that is the end goal of the project,” senior Colin Flanagan said.