The Upper School Engineering Program at Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy has done it again! On May 23, BCHA traveled to the American Dream Mall in New Jersey for the 2023 Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education’s Innovation Day and came home with two top prizes.

“It really is amazing,” said Rabbi Tzvi Bernstein, head of school at BCHA. “Our engineering students continue to win top prizes in every competition they enter. We are so pleased that our student’s interests, creativity and knowledge base are being nurtured by our science faculty. It is truly a wonderful partnership.”

Ben Steiner, Erez Fass and Dvir Frish finished with a first-place award in the category of Engineering for Workplace Solutions.

“Our engineering program is one of our upper school’s ‘crown jewels,’ not only because of our engineers’ stellar achievements in competitions but also because the program trains our students in the 4 Cs of 21st-century learning: communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity,” said Shimmy Trencher, principal of the BCHA Upper School.

Not to be outdone was the team of Jake Brenner, Lilah Gordon and Joseph Bildner who grabbed the Best Pitch award.

“This was the culmination of our best work,” said sophomore Joseph Bildner. “We put our hearts and souls into our capstone projects, and it felt great to win the Best Pitch Award.”

In the past four years, the BCHA Engineering Team, led by teachers Dr. Paul Castle and William Berson, has grabbed 15 prizes in a variety of engineering competitions!

All the accolades for the Honors Engineering program are due to the program being intense and demanding. Students at BCHA must demonstrate exceptional effort, creativity and teamwork. Students also must have a strong natural curiosity and creativity tempered by the ability to focus on a technical problem and diligently work to translate good ideas into practical solutions.