CAPS students build COVID shields for elementary schools

Senior Brody Bruns works on a set of COVID shields for that were set up at the elementary schools earlier this semester. He and senior Savoy Heisterman and others completed project in conjunction with the engineering strand of CAPS.

About a week ago, the CAPS Robotics and Engineering strand completed a task to make COVID-19 dividers for all of the elementary schools in the district. The two main associates that were in charge of this were seniors Brody Bruns and Savoy Heisterman. 

“The hardest thing about making the dividers was the time frame. We had from [a] Thursday afternoon to Monday morning to finish all 210 dividers, and some of the process was by hand,” Bruns said.

Though time was tight to get 210 polycarbonate dividers done, they finished them all. Even Bruns was surprised. “I didn’t think we were going to get it done with such short time,” Bruns said.

Brody and Savoy were the head of construction, and it was up to them to get the shields done and make sure they were ready to use. “Working with Savoy was good, but I did the majority of the work because everyone left for about two days,” Bruns said. 

The two also helped to make decisions in the choices of materials for the project.  “There are a few reasons we used polycarbonate instead of plexiglass. Polycarbonate does not shatter and it’s bullet proof. Plexiglass is not,” Bruns said.

Not only was he the head of construction, but he was also the project owner. For Bruns, “The best part of the whole project was leaving every school knowing that I made everyone happy, and as well as being the owner of the project.”

Being the project owners came with some upside for Bruns and Heisterman. Bruns said, “The district decided that the dividers were only going to be made for the cafeterias and that if any teachers want dividers for their classes they would have to pay Bruns and Heisterman personally.” 

Not only did the two aspiring engineers say they were proud of their work and how things turned out, they were happy about how much they did in such a short time. “We made dividers for all seven elementary schools,” Bruns said.