Engineering teacher Bruno Nosiglia started the school year with a clear mission: to teach his students not only how to handle tools and collaborate effectively, but also how to apply their skills to make a positive impact on the community.
Nosiglia’s B-Block Hands-on Engineering class fulfilled this goal by helping out the “Tiny Titans,” the preschool program at Algonquin. The students worked for months to replace dangerous, rotten wood around a playground frequently used by the preschoolers with natural, eco-friendly red oak that won’t rot. The end result was a safer environment for the children and a gratifying learning experience for the students.
“I’m proud of these guys because we’re moving right along,” Nosiglia said. “If you go out there, you’ll see that the new wood looks fantastic…My students are learning how to use tools and they’re learning how to work on a team.”
Nosiglia describes the situation as a “win-win” for both his students and the “Tiny Titans.”
“I’m a big believer in real projects, real life stuff—not ‘let’s make bird houses’ and things like that,” Nosiglia said. “Instead, we’re doing something for the community.”
Throughout the project, they ran into some challenges with dismantling the existing structure.
“We didn’t expect that there would be two layers of pressurized wood spiked together every eight inches,” Nosiglia said. “[They are] giant spikes. We were having a really tough time taking the top layer off.”
Despite this, the group rose to the occasion. Everyone took on different roles, from fillers who treated the new oak to smashers who destroyed the old wood.
“We got everybody smashing and we’re like termites picking away at it…” Nosiglia said. “But the good news is that we have a really good team led by two of my best, cutting the new timbers and then doing the precision cut.”
As the project continued, Nosiglia was able to watch the students improve.
“What’s nice about it is that those students are just doing it without much direction from me,” Nosiglia said. “I just do a little here and there, that’s it. They’re doing it because they know how to do it now.”
Sophomore Akshaj Polavarapu shared this sentiment. He previously worked to level the bricks that would make up the playground’s patio and transferred to a job cutting and measuring wood.
“I learned how to use methods to measure and cut efficiently,” Polavarapu said. “It’s not as simple as it would seem. When cutting a piece of wood, there’s a lot of techniques that you need to use to cut it so it’s straight and to make sure that you’re safe too.”
Senior Betsy Bertonazzi also took away valuable skills.
“I learned how to work with others well, and it’s nice to get hands-on experience doing construction and engineering work because I’ve never done that before,” Bertonazzi said.
As a result of their work, the students believe that the community will see positive results.
“I think it’ll benefit the little kids a lot because the wood before was really rotten; it was all chopped up, and now this is going to last for a long time,” Bertonazzi said.
As for what the class does next, Nosiglia has big plans.
“We want projects that can really help the school, the community and other people,” Nosiglia said. “Last year, my engineering class did some handicapped student adaptive devices to help them get around for five different students. [It was] fantastic and helped them out, and the Special Education department loved it, loved it, loved it. So we’re going to continue with that too.”
