Middle school students win STEM competition

A team of Dorseyville Middle School students recently won first place at the Hack the Ram competition. The students are eighth-graders Steven Hu, Kanisk Prakash and Siddarth Srinivasan, and seventh-grader PJ Hart.

Hack the Ram was a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) 12-hour invention marathon. The purpose of hackathons is to create technology with like-minded peers in a collaborative environment. As part of the contest, students were tasked to come up with a way to support environmental/green initiatives. They were then given 10 hours of “hacking time” to create a website, app, program, robot or other technology initiative to support the theme. The Dorseyville Middle School students developed a prototype website that provided information on common recycling errors, enabled individuals to search for nearby recycling centers and also for those centers to post their information, and enabled individuals to calculate their carbon footprint. The Dorseyville students each won a GPS drone for their efforts.

The competition was held January 27, 2024, at Pine-Richland High School and was open to students from grades 6-12 from across the greater Pittsburgh area.