INPERSON
Welcoming Creativity
BY NICOLE TAFE
Eden Hall Upper Elementary’ s Brandon Wees designs and creates a high-tech visitor kiosk.
Understanding Eden Hall Upper Elementary School became a little bit easier for visitors this year thanks to sixth-grader Brandon Wees and his high-tech visitor kiosk.
Brandon, 12, is the son of Kristi and Kevin Wees. His favorite subjects include math and science and his favorite teachers are Mrs. Conti and Mr. Harlan.“ Mrs. Conti is really energetic about math and Mr. Harlan tells really funny jokes and stories,” he says.
Brandon is part of the morning announcements production team and Ancient Egypt and Science Enrichment classes. In his spare time, he enjoys programming and designing gadgets on his home 3D printer. He recently finished a FIRST LEGO League( FLL) season with his team“ The Bot Boys” and won first place in the Project Presentation category. Brandon also participates in the NERF Warrior Challenge at CDG Sports and was involved in the Maker Faire Pittsburgh this past fall, where he shared some of his inventions at a vendor booth.
At Eden Hall, Brandon designed the visitor kiosk as part of the Sustainable School Initiative, which is offered to those in the gifted program. Eden Hall partners with Chatham University Falk School of Sustainability to educate students about sustainable features of a school and sustainable living, and collaborate on projects aimed at getting students to learn more about design solutions around those concepts.“ The Sustainable School Initiative is designed to educate by bringing awareness to the student body, and to leave the world better than we found it,” says Eden Hall Upper Elementary School gifted education teacher Joanna Sovek.
“ I realized we didn’ t really have anything at Eden Hall to educate visitors about the school,” says Brandon.“ Since I’ m good at programming, I decided the project would be a perfect fit for me.” He set to work during his fifth-grade year when he was asked to create something that would help the school in some way as part of an assignment. The project lasted into the first quarter of this year. Brandon applied for and was awarded a $ 750 grant by the Pine-Richland Opportunity Fund to support his work.
The first step of the process was to write a grant proposal and Brandon was assisted in this effort by Mrs. Sovek and another gifted education teacher, Jennifer Kopach. They proofread and edited the grant proposal and helped him submit the necessary materials. In addition to the proposal, Brandon had to design the kiosk and software, build, program
14 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE | Pine-Richland