After months of work, three high school technology teams will be presenting their entries for the 2018 Brock Maker Challenge next week.

The Brock Maker Challenge is a form of Active Project-Based Learning that challenges broad-based technology (BBT) high school class teams to tackle a real-world challenge with a focus on research, design, cooperation, creativity, and resourcefulness.

Brock’s Faculty of Education first ran the Maker Challenge last year with teams designing a product or device to help individuals with disabilities overcome the barriers to everyday living. Lakeshore Catholic High School’s design for a fully accessible cafeteria table took the top prize.

This year, the Faculty of Education, Goodman School of Business’ BioLinc and the Confucius Institute at Brock University (CIBU) invited teams to design a parade float prototype model to represent CIBU in the 2018 Niagara Grape and Wine Festival parade.

The three schools participating in this year’s showcase — Central Peel Secondary School, Lakeshore Catholic High School and DSBN Academy — will present their designs at the Maker Challenge design showcase Monday, Feb. 26 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Scotiabank Atrium of the Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Research Complex.

Each of the schools are using the theme of friendship between China and Canada along with the twinning of the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival with the Chinese Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival, which both take place in the fall.

The designs will be judged by Dorian Anderson, Executive Director of the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival; Jennifer (Jingyyu) Li, Director of CIBU; and Richard (Hongfu) Chen, Chinese Director of CIBU. The winning team, which will be announced at 1 p.m., will receive $1,500 for their school and the opportunity to build their design for use in the parade.