Palmyra High School students Clayton Tennison and Albert Groff will present their ideas for electricity generating shoes at the STEAM Tank finals.
Palmyra High School students Clayton Tennison and Albert Groff are trying to use their own two feet to generate electricity. The pair along with their advisor PHS teacher Tony Gore have used this idea to advance to the STEAM Tank finals, which will be held on October 24 and 25 at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
The trio have been involved in the New Jersey Regional STEAM Tank Competition created and sponsored by the New Jersey School Boards Association and the U.S. Army for several months now along with another team from Palmyra High School. Most recently, the students presented their designs to New Jersey school board members, engineers, scientists, business owners, entrepreneurs and New Jersey Department of Education officials at the Southern Regional STEAM Tank competition on Friday, May 5 at the Blackwood Reserve Center in Blackwood and waited to hear back if their idea would take them to the finals.
The STEAM Tank contest, modeled after the show “Shark Tank,” challenges students to create projects, which will be judged by a panel of business leaders, inventors and entrepreneurs. The Palmyra High School teams submitted projects titled “Redesign of Local Bridge” and “Electricity Generating Sneakers.”
In the end, only one of the teams got the good news that they would be advancing to the finals: “The Electricity Generating Sneakers” team. Now, in the Summer months ahead, Tennison, Groff and Gore are taking their ideas and making them a reality.
Groff said the idea for electricity generating shoes came to him when he noticed a pair of heelys in his friend’s closet. He said in one of his physics classes, he started discussing his disappointment that he couldn’t find a pair of adult heelys to fit his size eleven and a half feet, which somehow became a discussion about whether a wheeled shoe could generate electricity.
For their physics course Groff, a junior, and Tennison, a senior, gave a presentation on this theory, and ultimately, decided to take their idea and enter it in the STEAM competition.
Groff said at during the Southern Regional competition, they presented a slideshow proposing that a wheeled shoe could generate electricity which could connected to a charger on an individual’s ankle that could be used to power up a phone or other small device. With the help of Gore, the duo constructed computer generated models to showcase.
“It means alot to represent our school because our school is so small,” Groff said.
This summer, however, the trio will work to create a physical model to present in Atlantic City using a variety of shoes. Tennison said even though he’ll be graduating, he will continue to work on the project, and they will try to generate electricity using a variety of shoes from combat boots to flip flops.
“We’re not going to just have the one design,” Tennison said. “We’re going to have different ways to produce renewable energy.”
For both students, there’s an immense sense of pride in representing their small school at state competition.
“I’d like to give a nice representation of PHS on a state level and regional level,” Tennison said. “I’d like to put us on the map a little more.”
Gore echoed the students sentiments. He said he thinks it’s great to have Palmyra recognized for something outside of sports.
“When we participate in competitions like this it helps the district to see the importance of STEAM,” Gore said.
Gore said the Tennison and Groff have inspired some of the younger students to get involved in STEAM projects next year. He said many of the middle school aged students were hesitant to participate next year, but Tennison’s and Groff’s success has encouraged them.
For both Groff and Tennison, STEAM is not just a competition but their chosen path. Both students have expressed an interest in pursuing engineering in college.
