Saachi Jain

A child presses on the button, triggering the smasher.

This year’s STEM Madness At Saratoga High (SMASH) event, hosted in the quad on Friday by robotics team 6165 MSET Cuttlefish, saw over 1,200 pounds of pumpkin — more than twice the amount from the previous year — smashed in the span of three hours. 

Over 300 people arrived for the chance to operate the new pumpkin smasher, explore the variety of student clubs and delight in the projects of the STEM Maker Faire.

New pumpkin smasher proves to be effective

Although one of the two previous smashers experienced a mechanical failure, a third successful smasher was built this year. Designed by senior Alex Yaung, the new smasher was modeled after a trash compactor, featuring two separate pneumatic pistons that were activated with separate solenoids and tanks, hooked together with the same circuit. Yaung enjoyed learning about pneumatics in the process.

Credit for going in this direction goes to Class of ‘23 alumna Emily Lu, he said.

“Emily Lu, who was the original mastermind behind SMASH, actually just wanted to make something pneumatic, because that’s not something we get to use in FTC,” Yaung said. “By returning to a pneumatic design this year, I feel like it’s given me an opportunity to work with something I wouldn’t have usually worked with.”

Clubs and student groups open the window to student life at SHS

This year’s SMASH allowed many clubs to raise awareness about their missions. Among these 15 student clubs were the Green Team, Gardening Club, Green Committee, Environmental Action Club, 3D Print and Design Club, STEMist Club, Microcontroller Club and Women in STEM Club, each of which showed a distinctive side of life at SHS.

“A lot of the elementary and middle school parents came interested about what student life is like at Saratoga, and I think these activities fulfilled the interest and helped engage the kids,” said the event’s organizer, senior Manlin Zhang. “And hopefully, when they come to SHS, they’ll be more interested in pursuing these clubs.”

STEM Maker Faire brings together a community of makers

New to this year’s event was the STEM Maker Faire, which featured unique projects from a number of makers. Junior Eric Woo-Shem drew inspiration from a Maker Faire event held at his former school, where teachers and parents would put up a variety of booths that showcased tinkering projects and hands-on activities for kids. He wanted to broaden the scope of SMASH beyond just pumpkins and robotics, and this gave him the chance to focus on the overarching STEM theme of the event. Woo-Shem and sophomore Renisha Mandal organized a series of interactive science experiment stations and reached out to makers from the regional Maker Faire Bay Area event, nearby schools and small businesses.

Along with crafts from several local clubs, the Maker Faire spotlighted three notable professional projects: a solar vehicle from UC Berkeley team CalSol, living cactus solar panels from a UC Santa Cruz team and a Murgetroid, which was a 3D volumetric interactive color display by retired electrical engineer Donald Wilde.

“It was a completely new experience, having these STEM professionals come to visit, and I think it was a pleasant experience,” Zhang said. “It was very cool showing these kids how STEM can be applied to create tangible experiments.”

At the end of the afternoon, four and a half compost bins were brimming with pumpkins guts. More than this, however, were the community members who experienced the applications of STEM in supporting the environment.

“We met and surpassed expectations from last year in terms of composting,” Zhang said. “But the even better part was we had a bunch of elementary school kids staying to complete STEM activities. We really saw increased and sustained interest, which was great.”