In a show of international collaboration, British and San Antonio high schoolers worked side by side this week in a “challenge-based” engineering competition.
About a dozen students from JCB Academy in Rocester, England made their way to the Alamo City to team up with manufacturing and engineering students from Highlands High School and St. Phillip’s Early College High School in San Antonio Independent School District .
Hosted by City Education Partners, St. Mary’s University and the 80|20 Foundation, the students were divided into five mixed British and American groups. Their task: create a remote-controlled and pneumatic digger prototype over the course of 60 hours that could be used to clear up the debris polluting the San Antonio River, then pitch their creations to local investors.
For three days, JCB Academy and local students worked shoulder to shoulder to build their prototypes — given very few instructions by educators from both sides of the pond, working furiously from the corner room of the second floor of the Blank Shepherd Innovation Center on St. Mary’s campus.
On the first day, students were only asked to build wooden prototypes, which they used to practice several times and compete to see which was the fastest. On the second day, students were give pneumatic kits, machinery parts that would actually help the prototypes move.
“None of the students have ever worked with them before,” said Laura Cowley, associate director of special education needs at JCB Academy. “We’ve not given them too much guidance on intricate details, because we want to see what they come up with. And that way we’ll get lots of different ideas.”
JCB Academy was created by JCB, a manufacturing company based in the UK that’s recently set up shop in San Antonio and is currently building a one million-square-foot factory set to open by the end of the year.
The JCB Academy focuses on business and engineering pathways, serving students age 13-16 and A-level students, typically pupils between 16-18 completing their final two years of compulsory education in the UK.
Opening in 2010, the academy the first of its kind in the UK: a university technical college, government-funded schools for 14-19 year olds, focusing on hands-on and scientific education in partnership with employers and universities.
The goal is for most students who graduate to go straight into the workforce through apprenticeships, said Cowley.
“We want them giving back to the engineering world,” she said. “They earn money while they’re studying, and they have a job as well at the end of it, mostly. So we try and push them into apprenticeships.”
Seán Halligan, 17, attends JCB Academy. He said he enrolled there because he enjoyed learning with “more hands-on stuff.”
“JCB allowed me to do that, either through computer-aided design or practical models, like what we’re doing here, or even just in the classrooms, using blades, making products out of metal, and just the different challenges,” he said.
With 17 minutes to go in the challenge, Halligan said his team’s prototype wasn’t spinning yet, a crucial feature if the digger is supposed to clear out the “rubbish” from the San Antonio River.
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” he said before rushing back to his team.
At JCB Academy students primarily learn through challenge-based learning models, giving students a task or problem to solve, and letting them mostly figure things out for themselves.
Challenge-based learning was the theme of this week’s foreign collaboration, and the San Antonio students took to it quickly.
“I’ve learned how to code” said Anthony Rangel, a senior on the engineering track at Highlands. He picked up the basics after a day, and took on the coding position in his group.
Devin Johnson, a manufacturing teacher at Highlands, said it’s been interesting to watch the Brits and American students interact.
“Who’s in charge? Who’s not in charge? What are the dynamics?” are all questions Johnson had as he watched the students interact.
“They are at the rawest form of trying to work together with no social rules,” he said.
Located on the Southeast side of San Antonio, Highlands offers what’s known as a P-TECH program, pathways in technical early college high school with a focus on aerospace, engineering, manufacturing and welding.
Through a P-TECH, students can often earn industry-based certifications or get college credits under their belt to speed up and lessen the cost of getting a degree.
After the clock ran out on Wednesday, each prototype was assessed on how well it picked up a range of small items, ranging from toy blocks to empty water bottles. Groups also had to create 90-second reels and infographics to present to a panel of judges, or “investors,” comprised of local San Antonio business and manufacturing experts.
Judges included people like entrepreneur Graham Weston from Weston Ventures, a senior executive from Vroom Power and top engineers from groups like the San Antonio Water System and JCB.
The 80|20 Foundation, involved in planning the student exchange, is Weston’s charitable foundation.
“Our goal is for you to learn something in this in this challenge, and especially we want the Highland students to learn from the British students,” Weston said to students.
Weston visited JCB Academy nearly two years ago, and he hopes JCB, which has a growing footprint in the Alamo City, can open a similar campus here.
On top of the academic exchange, students have also been undergoing some cultural exchange. Teachers from both sides described some of cultural points students pressed on:
The Brits wanted to know if Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A, not yet available in the UK, really were “that good.” There was also some debate over proper attire: the UK students call it “smart dress,” the Americans call it “business casual.”
By Wednesday, JCB students had already visited the Riverwalk and planned to go bowling with Highlands students that evening. They also planned to visit the San Antonio Rodeo and the Highlands campus to get a feel for the “traditional” American high school.
This week’s trip could lead to more crossovers. Officials from both sides of the pond are already discussing cross-training in the methods of challenge- and project-based learning to give students more hands-on instruction.
