Medway High School Hosts 5th Annual Innovation Showcase Celebrating Student Success

Haven Miele and Kevin McMahon gave a presentation about their time as intern bank tellers during the fifth annual Innovation Showcase on Thursday, May 1. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)

MEDWAY — Superintendent Armand Pires and Principal Dr. John Murray are pleased to share that Medway High School held its fifth annual Innovation Showcase on Thursday, May 1.

With 105 total participating students, 32 senior interns, 19 projects from Project Lead the Way (PLTW) engineering and biomed courses, and nine competing capstone projects, the Innovation Showcase is a dynamic event celebrating the ingenuity, creativity, and hard work of students who participated in internships this school year.

The Innovation Showcase featured a diverse array of internship experiences, capstone projects, and cutting-edge work in robotics, engineering, and biomedical sciences. The annual event brings together students, educators and industry professionals for an afternoon of invention, connection and celebration.

The Innovation Showcase provides students with the opportunity to present the culmination of their year-long academic and career-focused endeavors to families, educators, student peers, industry partners and the broader community. Attendees were able to learn about student-designed solutions to real-world problems, prototypes developed through engineering coursework, and insights gained from professional internships in a variety of fields.

Medway High School welcomed special guests, including State Rep. Jeffrey Roy, Massachusetts Assistant Secretary for Career Education Robert LePage, PLTW President and CEO David Dimmett, PLTW Massachusetts Strategic Account Director Suzanne Snow and One8 Applied Learning Hub Director Katherine Skrivan.

Topics featured in the capstone presentations included an innovative method to learn guitar through video gameplay, interferometric radar for sky surveillance, and reshaping abandoned buildings from eyesores to green space.

Judges evaluated students’ projects based on the problem, plan, prototype and overall presentation. Principal Dr. Murray thanked all of the volunteer judges for their hard work to help make this event a success.

After a calculation of the judges’ scores, capstone project winners included the following presentations:

1. FelineFine Precision Syringe: Sofia Mercier
2. MossWall: Duncan Graves, Noah Buckley and Thomas Bernier
3. Spi-R Interferometric Radar: Riley Ashok, Matt Montana, Michelle Pishchik and Zach Phillips

The winners were awarded a medal in recognition for their accomplishments.

Internship students spoke about what they learned and the key takeaways from their experiences, highlighting their tasks while at their internships, the relationships they built with supervisors and colleagues, and how their experience made a direct impact on their future college and career plans.

As part of Medway High School’s Innovation Career Pathways program, internship placements ranged from education internships completed within the Medway Public Schools’ early childhood and elementary schools, to banking internships completed with Charles River Bank, to various healthcare internships with local institutions.

“Medway High is grateful to all of their internship partners for sharing their time and knowledge with the senior interns,” said Principal Dr. Murray. “These valuable career connection experiences would not be possible without these important partnerships. Medway High School would like to again extend their appreciation to all the students who participated, the educators and faculty, the volunteer judges, the internship partners, the special guests, all attendees, and to the sponsors of this event, Constellation Energy and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Career Connected Learning grant.”

The Medway High School Robotics Club demonstrated student-built VEX competition bots within the robotics field. Engineering exhibits from the PLTW Civil Engineering & Architecture Design and Principles of Engineering courses were also on display. The biomedical science projects from the PLTW Medical Interventions and Principles of Biomedical Science courses explored the topics of public health, bionic human technology and pioneering the future of medicine.

“The fifth annual Medway Innovation Showcase was a major success. This event highlights our commitment to preparing students for success beyond the classroom,” said Principal Murray. “The students’ hard work was evident, and all attendees were impressed by the projects and presentations. From collaborative engineering design challenges within the capstone projects to biomedical research to career immersion internship experiences, our students are not only gaining knowledge and skills, but they’re also applying it in meaningful ways.”

Anyone interested in learning about how to get involved with this event or any of these programs, please contact Dr. Murray (johnmurray@medwayschools.org), Jon Jasinski (jjasinski@medwayschools.org), or Carly Brousseau at Medway High School (cbrousseau@medwayschools.org).

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MacKenzie Pierce gave a presentation about her internship in education at Burke-Memorial Elementary School. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)

From left to right, students Rosie Benedetto, Molly Johnson, Isabella Curtis and Emma Copeland gave a presentation about their internships in the healthcare field. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)

Jason LaChance gave a presentation about his internship in the engineering field. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)

The fifth annual Innovation Showcase featured a diverse array of internship experiences, capstone projects, and cutting-edge work in robotics, engineering and biomedical sciences. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)

The fifth annual Innovation Showcase featured a diverse array of internship experiences, capstone projects, and cutting-edge work in robotics, engineering, and biomedical sciences. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)

The Innovation Showcase provides students with the opportunity to present the culmination of their year-long academic and career-focused endeavors to families, educators, student peers, industry partners and the broader community. (Photo Courtesy Kathleen Miller)