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Seniors and Pre-Kindergartners Alike Appreciate the Delight of Gingerbread Houses

Since returning from winter break, students in Chris DiMenna’s Engineering elective have been working to design and build gingerbread houses. The project incorporated the four Gilman skills — think, communicate, collaborate, and create — and also a lot of fun (and probably a little snacking, too).

To begin, the juniors and seniors used Tinkercad — an online 3D modeling program — to construct their designs. Next, they analyzed their designs and estimated the materials they would need. They learned about bills of materials (a source of information used to complete a product) and created them for their houses, based on a list of suggested supplies from DiMenna. Finally, the students got to work building based on their designs and bills of materials. The houses were fashioned from graham crackers, pretzel sticks, marshmallows, licorice, M&Ms, chocolate bars, wafers, icing, and other delicious treats.

“My favorite part of the project was brainstorming ideas and getting a little creative in terms of thinking about how and what we were going to build,” said Yusuf Kanbour ’23. “It was surprising how difficult it was to build with graham crackers.”

The houses were on display for faculty and staff to judge over the first couple days of February, and they withstood additional scrutiny when Brooke Thomas and Marisa Schomisch’s pre-k class visited. The young Greyhounds were impressed by the skills and hard work that went into designing and building the houses but they were even more excited to see the materials used; many of them pointed out their favorite candies as they moved through the room and commented on their temptation to eat the houses. A crowd favorite was the house that was a replica of Carey Hall. “That’s Gilman School!” one pre-k student exclaimed as he recognized the building.

Prizes were awarded to three winners in each category, as follows:

True to Design
  • 1st: Shay Cox '23 and Charlie King '23
  • 2nd: Jamel Williams '23
  • 3rd: Bo Webster '23 and Sean Collins '23
Creativity
  • 1st: Seth Lindt '23 and Patrick Rodgers '23
  • 2nd: Chase Spurrier '23 and Charlie Slater '23
  • 3rd: Tremont Henson '23

 

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