COCOLALLA — Five Southside Elementary students knew nothing about 3D printing in October when they took on the task of solving a transportation problem.

Nevertheless, they dug deep into the problem, spending countless hours developing a snowshoe that comes apart to fit easily into a backpack.

“These guys spent lots of recesses and many, many hours missing lunch to try and get everything done,” said Lynette Leonard, school librarian and mentor for the FabSLAM team.

Their hard work paid off as Southside’s Transportation Explanation FabSLAM 3D printing team took first place at the North Idaho FabSLAM regional competition in Lewiston on March 3. They also took home the Students' Choice Award as voted on by the students from around the region who attended the competition.

The Transportation Explanation team consists of five Southside students, including fifth-graders Olivia Moore, Sadie Etzwiler, Payton Jackson and Ruby Jiles, and sixth-grader Grace Moore.

They began working on the project in October after receiving a grant from the Idaho STEM Action Center, Leonard said.

Olivia said the team came up with several ideas, anything that had to do with a transportation problem. They made a show of hands to vote on the problems they wanted to solve the most, she said, bringing the list down to two options — a snowshoe or shoes that turn into skis.

“We get a lot of snow in our playground,” Payton said, adding that when they are out there and the bell rings, they are often late to class as they try to get back through the deep snow and ice.

So the group decided to make the snowshoe, which have spikes on the bottom for the ice. Sadie said to make one snowshoe in the 3D printer takes 36 hours. The snowshoes also come apart in three pieces to fit in a backpack.

One area where the kids had to do some problem solving was when it came to the screws holding the pieces together. Payton said they tried some screws that would pierce through the snowshoe, and those didn’t work because the pieces would wobble. The screws they ultimately used make the snowshoe “really sturdy,” she said.

Grace said she was the first to test out the snowshoe on the playground, and was excited that it worked and didn’t break. The snowshoes not only work for the kids, however. Leonard said she had her husband, who weighs about 180 pounds, test it out as well.

“And it worked just fine,” Leonard said.

To design the snowshoe, Olivia said they used the online design tool Tinkercad. Payton said they looked on thingiverse.com to get a base snowshoe design, but then modifying it to come apart into three pieces, adding the spikes, and changing the length and width to their desired size.

And each member of the team said they learned valuable lessons throughout the process.

“What I learned from this process is that you can take an ordinary, everyday object and make it into something new … and I also learned how to 3D print,” Olivia said.

All of the girls agreed they learned about 3D printing, and Sadie said making a website from scratch and using Weebly to build their site was a new experience as well.

“I think it was a good journey for all of us,” Grace said.

“What I learned is that you have to have perseverance” Ruby added. “A lot of us had problems where it glitched or our website deleted fully, so we had to keep on trying, so that just showed 100-percent teamwork … when we were doing it, we were like family.”

The students said they enjoyed the competition in Lewiston, and Payton said the judges told them they won because they put a lot of time and effort into their design, and also because they were willing to take feedback on how to improve the design.

“It was just a really fun experience,” Sadie said. “... I thought it wouldn’t be this fun, but it takes a lot of effort. Like when times get rough and you want to quit, it takes a lot of grit.”

The first place award included a $500 prize for the school to continue instruction of 3D design and fabrication. The Students' Choice Award came with a $250 prize as well. The Southside team competed against 14 other teams, which consisted of elementary, middle school and high school students.

FabSLAM is a national competition that started in Baltimore in 2013. Leonard said Idaho is one of only three states currently participating in FabSLAM. When they put out the grant this year, Leonard decided to go for it.

“I wanted them to do it because it teaches 3D fabrication and the design process,” Leonard said, adding it teaches them how to take a product from a thought, all the way through to producing the product. “... Hopefully this is a program that we can continue for years to come, because it teaches them so many good skills — lots of good, 21st century STEAM skills.”

Check out the team's website at southsidefabslam2018.weebly.com.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.