Earlier in the school year, John Giarmo of Giarmo’s Carpet Cleaning came and presented to Custer teacher Kyle Reed’s sixth robotics and coding class about the process of designing an invention and receiving a patent. His “Save-a-Trip” is a three-stock object that attached to a carpet cleaning wand, giving the user a convenient place to hold bottles of chemicals. He was able to give the students a lesson on the invention process, making prototypes, and following through with production.

“My initial prototype was three soup cans,” Giarmo laughed.

Before he left, he gave the class a challenge; following his design, he requested that the students design and manufacture a model of his invention on the school’s 3D printer.

“These guys really took it and ran,” Reed said. “There were about five students that really hit the nail on the head with it, but Kyle Pafford’s was the closest.”

Pafford, after working with TinkerCAD software, designed a prototype almost identical to Giarmo’s.

“It was fun to make,” Pafford said, explaining all the steps to his design. “We used calipers to measure everything. It wasn’t too hard.”

Giarmo returned to see the fruits of the Cougars’ labors and found a prototype that he would attach to his cleaning wand and use later that day on the job. Pafford’s model was a replica that could be utilized immediately, right from the classroom.

“This is great,” he said. “I was telling people, ‘I’m getting a new prototype made,’ but they were shocked when I said it was being made by a sixth grade class at Custer. People could pay a company to do this work, but he (Pafford) made it here in school. It looks perfect!”

“This was a great lesson,” Reed said. “They got to see the full process of creating something new. This just highlights what a great STEAM program we have here at Custer. Kids are getting started on learning CAD and design in fifth and sixth grade. They are starting this so young and are learning real applicable skills in elementary school.”