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JUNE 12, 2026— A bad time teeing up a golf bar, a miscounted swimming lap, and a cluttered kitchen drawer can all be annoying, and a group of seniors at the Pal-Mac High School found a way to fix those.

Students in Mr. Jennette’s engineering class spent months turning their ideas into physical, problem-solving prototypes. This resulted in three distinct projects: an Adjustable Dry Measuring Cup,  an underwater Swim Practice Lap Counter, and an Automatic Golf Tee setter.

The rigorous projects served as the grand finale for their capstone project, which is a key piece of the Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Engineering pathway offered at Pal-Mac. The PLTW pathway is just one of several career and technical tracks designed to give students a head start on college and professional fields.

Below you will find more information on each project from the students themselves. 

All-in-One Kitchen Solution

Carrier (left) and Cole (right) hold up their multistage measuring cup

Student engineers Jared Carrier and Grayson Cole set out to redefine standard kitchen tools by creating the "multistage measuring cup,” a tool specifically designed to eliminate the need for a cluttered ring of multiple measuring cups.

The compact device features four cascading cups nested together, with measurements on both sides. A custom-designed, size-changing lever situated at the base allows users to easily transition between measurements.

The team spent months of trial and error fine-tuning the mechanics on the CAD program Onshape. 

"We went through a lot of trouble designing this with tolerances and getting it all right to fit," Carrier said. "You can take apart the cup by unscrewing the top and bottom, it's in about 10 different pieces, so you can easily clean it."

Cole noted that the project was selected because of its immediate, real-world utility.

"The theme of trying to make a measuring cup that fit all sizes into one felt the most practical out of all the ones," Cole said.

Swimming into the Future with AI

Taking on an entirely different environment, the swimming pool, student developers George Newsome, Carson Lich, and Gavin Drain engineered a Swim Practice Lap Counter they call the "HydroScore." 

The underwater device was designed specifically to track swimming laps during training and eliminate the common frustration of losing track of your lane count.

The device relies on a sonar sensor to detect a swimmer from a distance without requiring any action or wearable tech from the athlete. However, this futuristic pool tool presented massive hardware and software hurdles.

The team went through a gauntlet of prototypes, from a tackle box and a Tupperware container before they found a heavy-duty junction box that was donated to them. From there, they partnered with Palmyra-based manufacturer Garlock to design a waterproof gasket and acrylic viewing window.

The innovation didn’t stop there as the team used artificial intelligence to make up  for what they hadn't yet learned in the classroom.

"We had to use AI to figure out the coding to make the sensor work and all that," Newsome said. "So, using AI in an actual productive manner was pretty cool to see."

Though the team faced late-stage challenges with a short-range sensor substitution, Drain noted the project taught them invaluable lessons.

"We learned a lot about planning and how much we have to adapt, as well as the functionality of AI within an academic and functional circumstance," Drain said.

 

A Smart Pivot on the Range

Bonded by their shared love for golf, student engineers Noah Dapolito and Logan Kuczynski developed the "AutoTee," an Automatic Golf Tee solution that automates placing balls on a tee.

Golfers can simply dump a bucket of balls into the top hopper, and with the press of a foot lever, a single ball filters down an internal ramp and onto the ground.

Unlike stationary commercial alternatives, the AutoTee was designed with mobility in mind to assist aging players.

"Our biggest point was we wanted to make it transportable because everything we saw online was just stationary," Dapolito said. 

Their crafty creation was born from a completely different idea that they had to take a mulligan on. The duo attempted to design cold-weather athletic wear, but ran into a high price tag for the supporting technology.

So, like all good problem-solvers, they pivoted. The work wasn’t easy, as it required endless hours of 3D printing adjustments to get the internal mechanisms to align. But they nailed it, and felt the work was worth it.

"It’s really cool, actually, because it’s like 100 bucks we didn’t have to spend and it’s just great seeing something that we made turn into something productive that we could use," Dapolito said.

Both Kuczynski and Dapolito plan to study engineering at the next level. Dapolito noted that while the finished devices look sleek, the public rarely sees the grit required to get there.

"While it may look simple, this is not easy to do," Dapolito said. "It takes a lot of hard work behind closed doors to finish all this."