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 6YJOHYK 3HRL 9K
6YJOHYK  7SHaH

(NW corner of Orchard Lake & 12 Mile Rds.,
corner store behind Starbucks)

Farmington Hills, MI 48334

248-553-7720

LO-0000275722

watchbandsplus.com

DESIGNS IN DECORATOR WOOD & LAMINATES, LTD.

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Complete kitchen and

bathroom remodeling

as well as furniture

design and installations

including granite, wood

and other materials.

Lois Haron Allied Member ASID 248.851.6989

16 April 14 • 2016

Gariella Burman

Arielle Schlafer
and Isabel
Zaltz, both 13,
won the ramp
competition with
their design.

Solving Problems

Hillel students create a ramp to help
a family welcome a friend in a wheelchair.

Stacy Gittleman | Contributing Writer

A

my Cutler of West Bloomfield
loves to host meals for her
family and friends on the
High Holidays. The Cutlers especially
enjoy the company of their friend
Howard Averbuch of Farmington Hills.
These days, Averbuch needs a wheel-
chair to get around and that makes it
a challenge to navigate the steps that
lead to the Cutlers’ front door.
Cutler needed to find a custom-built
temporary ramp that she could assem-
ble quickly and easily for Averbuch’s
visits. In her quest for a solution, she
turned to some of the best problem
solvers in town: the seventh-graders of
Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills.
Soon, the ramp design project
gained STEAM. In other words, Hillel
teachers of science, technology, engi-
neering, the liberal arts and math saw
this as an opportunity for students to
solve a real-world problem based on
the knowledge they gained in all these
subjects. Judged by parent volunteers
and FNI Architects, the architectural
firm renovating the school building,
the seventh-graders this winter set to
work on who could design the best
ramp. This was a serious design com-
petition, complete with a materials
study, budget and a business-like pitch
to secure the winning design.
“This is a kind of project that
encompasses so much more than the
contextual, but also the applicable
knowledge of critical problem-solving
skills,” said math teacher David
Venning. “Today’s students will need
to know how to think across different
disciplines to be successful in tomor-
row’s workforce.”
The winning design is the creation
of seventh-graders Arielle Schlafer, 13,
of Farmington Hills and Isabel Zaltz,
13, of Huntington Woods.
During the design process, Arielle
and Isabel visited the Cutler home to
take measurements of the front stairs.
There, they realized that a ramp could
not simply be a single piece with one

slope. Each stair had different dimen-
sions in height and depth. The girls
needed to calculate and then engineer
four different parts for the ramp. To
accomplish this, they went back to
school to learn about slope theory with
Venning to come up with just the right
formula.
There were more challenges and still
more research. In their social studies
class, the pair studied the Americans
with Disabilities Act as well as local
building laws to make sure their ramp
design was up to code. They then did
more research to determine which
materials best fit the project, ones that
would be lightweight yet sturdy and
affordable in price.
After they plugged the measure-
ments into formulas they created
based on slope theory, they drew their
ideas both on paper and a computer-
aided 3D design program called
Google SketchUp. There were many
trips back to the real and virtual draw-
ing boards before they finalized a
design worthy of presenting to Cutler
and FNI architects.
The final design — a ramp made
of four parts — will include cutout
handles and skid-proof strips on the
bottom of each ramp component. Now
the girls are busy raising money to buy
the materials to see the ramp design
come to fruition. So far, with the help
of a bake sale with brownies provided
by Bake Station, they have raised about
$320 for supplies.
“This is what 21st-century learning
looks like,” said Cutler, who retired
as the Hillel upper-school principal
in 2003 and now teaches at Oakland
University. “The ramp has turned out
to be such a meaningful project for
the students that combined so many
elements of their education — math,
social studies, science and the Jewish
value of chesed (kindness). And the
parents of those girls had better start
saving up for tuition at MIT.”

*

