On September 19, 2025, a PBL event took place at the STEAM building involving STEAM students, Fayette County Public Schools staff, and engineers from the safety firm Bullard. There were groups of STEAM freshmen giving presentations around the El Centro. Each group had two Fayette county staff members ready to listen and take notes on the information. The freshmen were presenting documents they created with information they had collected and tests that they ran for a study on fidget toys. This was a project that Bullard, a fire helmet and engineering safety office, had asked STEAM students to research. Their goal for the students was to create handheld fidget toys and test how fidgets can calm kids down with anxiety during a crisis. The students used a software called Tinkercad to build their fidgets and then 3D printed them out.
Rachel Bareus with the Office of Instructional Technology was at the event and viewing the freshman presentations. She said, “We’re digital learning coaches and we’re here to evaluate students’ final products for their collaboration between the fire department and Bullard construction.” She noted that workers from Bullard would be coming to STEAM later that day to also observe and evaluate the projects. Rachel stated that the project was a very unique opportunity for the STEAM students problem solving skills, “So I love, personally, how this project kind of takes a problem of practice, but also it’s something that’s within our community and gives kids an opportunity to learn through the engineering design process, how to solve this problem, and create some really cool products that are gonna impact their community in the mean time.”
The project that the students did was called ‘Charge into Fire’ and was the overall project for the Freshman defenses. Every year, the freshmen are given the task to do a science project usually for their math or physics class involving experiments, research, trials and many other things that they then will present to adults to be scored over for an evaluation. This year, the Bullard Fidgets toy project was what they used for their defenses. The STEAM freshman defenses give new high school students a way to reflect on their learning as well as understand how to relate their learning to the STEAM habits.
