Freshman Naomi Kane turns on the drill press, carefully adjusting the piece of foam. The drill plunges into the foam wheel, creating a perfect axle hole.

Within the first month of school, Kane and other freshmen have already begun to engineer their very own vehicles in their Design and Technology classes. Over a period of three weeks, most freshmen will use physics and mechanics to incorporate their knowledge on gears and pulleys to make a vehicle drive up an incline plane.

Teachers have provided students with an imaginary budget in order to purchase supplies provided by the teachers themselves. Each group of four students then has to design the outline exterior and positioning of all the gears inside the car. Once the mechanics start working, the students can then test their vehicles on three different heights of an inclined plane.

“The hill climber project provides students with an interesting, yet challenging activity that makes us think outside of the box,” Kane said.