by Adria Roller
4th Grade at Brooks Harbor Elementary (West Fargo, ND)
Honorable Mention
One morning it was nice and sunny, so we decided to have our Girl Scouts meeting at the park. I love Girl Scouts! My two best friends are in it; Meadow and May. We have been friends since we were 5! Our troop leader asked what we could do to help our community. I looked over and saw a girl in a wheelchair talking to a girl on the swings. I thought to myself, I never noticed that people in wheelchairs could not play at the park . Then I suggested, “We should make something for kids with disabilities!”
“Like what?” Meadow questioned.
“Maybe a slide.” May responded.
“Then it’s settled! We will start brain storming next week!” our troop leader exclaimed.
At our next meeting our leader brought a huge poster. She told us it was the Engineering Design Process. It had “Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create and Improve”. First, we talked about “ask”. Like what the problem is or what it’s for. We had finished that. Now it was time for “imagine”. We wrote down some of our ideas on a piece of paper. Then it was time to go home. The next week we took all our ideas from the plan and drew the slide at all angles.
In the third week we started the “create” step. First, we went to the store to get all our supplies. Then, we went to May’s house to make it. First, we put it in a triangle shape and added a pully system to make the platform move up to the slide. Then when it was ready to test, we used Meadow’s brother John’s wheelchair that they had in the garage. We let it slide down, but it bent in too much in the middle. I wanted to melt. Then my leader said this is part of the ‘’improve’’ step; we just had to add support beams. We walked over to our slide and got back to work to make sure it wouldn’t bend in the middle again. We tested it again, but it went way too fast. We went back and modified it again and we cut some wood off the back to make it go slower. We tested it and it finally worked! We had smiles a mile wide!!!
After it was finished our leader told us she had scheduled a time with the park board to talk about our slide. I ran home and told my mom. That night I was awake until 3:00 am!!! When we got to the park board Meadow was in tears she was so nervous. We walked in to a big room and told them what it was and what it was for. AND THEY LOVED IT!!! A few weeks later we saw it being installed at the park and in about 3 days it was ready to be used! We showed it to the same girl that we saw at the park the day of our Girl Scouts meeting and she played on it forever!! We were so happy we were able to make a difference!!