Cedar Grove student designs fidget spinner for school

One of the top toy trends has become a learning experience for a Cedar Grove fifth-grader.

Eric Silverman designed five different fidget spinners for his technology class with teacher Jeremy Luogameno. Memorial Middle School Principal Nicholas DeCorte and Luogameno promoted Silverman’s work as one way they are trying to help their students prepare for their futures with unique assignments.

Silverman said he had the idea to print out a model of a fidget spinner after he saw Luogameno do the same and also from his sister, using a 3-D printer. He watched videos on YouTube for more inspiration and then took two months to find his final design.

“I went through five prototypes,” noted Silverman, “and it was a hard process because I had to find out the correct measurements and do a little bit of math finding out what would fit in my hand with the ball bearings, how much sanding I needed to do, and how thin or thick I needed to make it, and it was actually a very fun process.”

Some of the early designs were too big to fit in Silverman’s hand. Another broke, and the ball bearings did not fit for one. When he finally got it right, Silverman colored the fifth one blue so he could tell it apart from the orange attempts before it.

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Luogameno credited Silverman for not becoming discouraged.

“In my class, failure isn’t a bad thing," the teacher said. "Giving up is a bad thing.” 

Fidget spinners are toys marketed as stress relievers, but are seen as distractions by some people.

“I think lot of middle schools see fidget spinners as challenges,” DeCorte said, “but we see them as an opportunity for something to creatively think about.”

The room for the technology class was redesigned this year to make it a more casual setting with beanbag chairs, pillows, and children sitting on the floor with the freedom to move where they’d like with their wireless Google Chromebooks. 

The technology class will also grow into two different classes next season – one focusing on STEM or science, technology, engineering and math, the other on robotics and coding. 

Engineering and design will be the main focus for the STEM course, according to Luogameno.

“We’re going to focus on problem solving,” he added. “So you get a problem, how do we solve this, and is there always only one solution or can there be multiple solutions to the problem?”

DeCorte said he visited similar robotics and coding classes in another school district and saw the different ways they can incorporate other subjects. For example, some students would create a robot and then a corresponding web page to describe it. They could also present it to the rest of the class to work on their public speaking, DeCorte said. 

“What I envision for this class,” the principal said, “… it’s taking a lot of the core concepts that Mr. Luogameno has been doing in technology [class] and transitioning them into the real world.”

Email: jongsma@northjersey.com