Westmoreland students employ modeling skills, sky-high concepts in airport design challenge

Officials are planning a major terminal expansion at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport and gifted students from seven Westmoreland County school districts have created their own concepts for accommodating and attracting travelers.

The students’ scaled-down models of what the terminal in Unity could look like took center stage this week in the existing building’s second-floor community room. Their designs were competitively judged by officials from nearby Saint Vincent College and from the Laurel Highlands Aeronautical Academy, a flight school based at the airport.

The students were challenged to balance practical considerations with original ideas, said Maureen Grace, a gifted support instructor at Mt. Pleasant Area High School who organized the design competition.

“They were told their imagination was their limit,” Grace said. “They could create anything that they wanted, but they had to be cognizant of engineering and architectural requirements — for scale, both in their blueprints and in their physical model.”

With limited time to finish their model, a team of Greensburg Salem Middle School students concentrated on ambitious second-floor amenities.

Their design was recognized as “most creative” among the 18 middle school teams that participated in the challenge.

The five members of the Greensburg Salem team added an outdoor dining area for the terminal’s existing DeNunzio’s Italian Chophouse restaurant. They also left room for an event center and an art gallery.

Inspired by the Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve at Saint Vincent, they used miniature artificial trees to represent a proposed conservatory they dubbed “Winnie’s Wing.”

“We figured it would be perfect to add something ‘naturey’ and fun for kids and just anyone to walk around inside and explore,” said seventh grader Georgia Denny-Greathouse.

A team from Penn-Trafford High School’s gifted program stuck more closely to the Arnold Palmer terminal’s current layout and the Westmoreland County Airport Authority’s proposed design expansion. The students still contributed their own flair; they added some color by painting the walls of their foam-board model a shade of mauve.

The Penn-Trafford team invested more than 20 hours in designing and building their model airport and drafting a business plan for its operation. The effort paid off with an overall second-place trophy among the four participating high school teams.

One of the toughest tasks was making sure all sections of the expansive model fit together as planned. A particular challenge was minimizing a gap between the top floor and some ascending stairs, sophomore Faiz Khatri said.

Still, he said, the collaborative design project was a fun experience for him.

“I enjoyed working with other people,” he said.

Franklin Regional Middle School Team 1, one of four fielded by the school, placed first in its grade-level category. First-place honors at the high school level went to a Mt. Pleasant Area team.

In addition to their printed designs and constructed models, the teams were judged on the impact their oral presentations and visual aids had on the judges.

The Franklin Regional team members explained their model incorporated plenty of added amenities, including a food court’s worth of dining options, a station for powering up mobile devices and even a child care center.

“It would be day care for anybody whose flight is delayed or if they’re waiting a long time for their flight,” said seventh grader Emme Hanington.

The invitational design challenge met Mt. Pleasant Area’s requirement to hold an annual event while participating in a group of gifted support teachers at Westmoreland County schools.

The inaugural challenge began in November when Mt. Pleasant Area partnered with the airport authority to provide participating students a tour of the facilities at Arnold Palmer Regional.

“The response has been outstanding,” Grace said. “The gifted teachers, the children and their families all put a lot of effort into this to make it a good event.”