In Becton Regional’s second year of participating in CANstruction, the team placed 2nd against four surrounding schools in both the fan vote and judge vote.
This event took place on March 3, 2025, chaperoned by Ms. Angela Calasso, Mr. Michael Lind, and Mrs. Amanda Colangelo at the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, NJ. Student attendees included: Olivia Busa, Evan Fonseca, Eric Jiang, Lhaze Kunsang, Steven Longo, Jose Martinez, Brandon Martinez-Perez, Mia Natale, Mia Sanchez, and Medhasree Suram. The competition included North Arlington High School, Bergen Technical Schools, Ramapo College, and Bergen Community College.
CANstruction is an engineering-based design event, where students use unopened cans of food to build a structure that relates to this year’s topic of Food Security & Health. The design chosen by our Wildcats was “Farm to Table.” The cans, afterward, are donated to local food pantries.
“CANstruction is important to me because it allows students’ creativity to flourish and show them that their ideas can come to life,” Mr. Lind expresses, “However, the most important thing is that we get the privilege of helping people in need. Although we won’t physically see the families using our cans, simply knowing that every can we touch will go to someone who desperately needs it, means the world.”
The purpose of CANstruction is to challenge our young minds to think critically while working together and representing our school, as Ms. Calasso explains, “It incorporates all aspects of STEAM, with each member of our diverse team contributing their strengths in different areas. I particularly value this project because it challenges students to collaborate in overcoming obstacles.”
Student Medhasree Suram came up with the structural design. “At our first meeting, Mr. Lind suggested a table with a barn on top. From there, our team created a 3D model and refined it over winter break. We made sure that the structure was both structurally sound and visually appealing,” she divulged. This is even more impressive because this was Suram’s first year attending CANstruction!
The students stay overnight at the chosen location alongside their competitors and, with the help of Ms. Calasso and Mr. Lind, it is ensured that their creation is able to structurally hold. They started at 9 PM, finally concluding around 3:30 AM.
Taking aspects from topics in school such as phyisics and mathematics, the team must stay within the confines of a 6’x6′ structure. “By involving students in engineering design challenges like this, we foster a passion for using the skills they learn in the classroom to benefit the community and create something artistic,” Ms. Calasso notes.
The night was not without a challenge, though! Fellow attendee Olivia Busa recalls, “The actual building process ended up taking longer than anticipated as we had to re-construct the table portion of our build. A lot of the building activity was being able to adapt and change the build as needed. With minor tweaks to our design, everything else went smoothly.”
Suram furthers, “We faced several challenges along the way: some cans were the wrong color, the ones we used for the table legs didn’t interlock properly and the weight of the cans put significant pressure on the plywood base. However, overcoming these obstacles made the experience even more rewarding.”
The two students reflected on their experience, with Suram highlighting the engineering aspect, “For me, CANstruction is all about the building experience. I knew going into this project that we’d encounter challenges, and that’s what excites me: finding creative solutions in the moment. It’s a true test of ingenuity and teamwork. For our school, CANstruction aligns with our commitment to providing students with unique hands-on opportunities while giving back to the community.”
Busa enjoyed all aspects of the trip, “It was a cool experience and not a lot of people get to say they spent the night at a mall building something out of cans! It made it even more rewarding knowing that our build was going to help those in need. Although we didn’t win this year, I had a great time with my classmates.”
Congratulations to our young thinkers for placing. We cannot wait to see what next year’s CANstruction brings to the table!
