Putting Principles of Engineering Into Practice

10/14/2026

Sophomore Angus McCallum has been busy building and testing core concepts in his Principles of Engineering course, taught by upper school engineering teacher Maya Zakarin.

View a Photo Gallery of the Principles of Engineering Class

He is particularly drawn to “the hands-on aspect of creating something useful in the real world and turning ideas into reality.”

The class recently completed a simple machines project where students were tasked with helping a fictional farmer with a problem by designing, building, testing, analyzing and improving a working prototype using VEX V5 structural components.

Zakarian explained that the project began in the Robotics Lab. “It was the students’ first time working with these materials, so the lesson focused on exploring the different parts, understanding their properties and becoming familiar with how they can be used in engineering design,” Zakarin said.

McCallum and classmate Jack Barek ’29 collaborated on the assignment, which they both found fun and rewarding.

Barek said, “While everyone had the same materials: VEX structures, screws, axles and wheels, so many different designs were created. Some were pulleys, some cars and some with ramps, too. It felt inspiring that completely different challenges and creations were created from the same materials, with the only difference being the people behind those creations.”

The duo devised a way to transport farm animals to the second floor of a barn using a compound pulley system (two pulleys with one on a fixed axle and another suspended and connected to the original pulley).

“The system we created could lift the animals upwards, like an elevator,” Barek said. “We created tracks to keep the moving platform in place and made sure that our model could lift a proportionally heavy object, representing the animals.”

Zakarian is excited to have her students embrace the problem-solving work and its challenges: “This is a highly engaged group that has shown a true interest in engineering concepts and the hands-on nature of the course.”