Beginning in the waning days of the 2024-2025 school year, the Oviedo Engineering Club’s chicken coop project has been progressing steadily ever since.

Commissioned by the Agriculture Club to store their chickens and goats that are set to arrive in the next school year, the project was headed by physics teacher and the club sponsor Jordan Orlewicz, who has been with the Engineering club since its inception four years ago; he’s since worked on many projects along with the kids over the club’s lifespan (like the solar-powered table located near the science building) with the chicken coop being their most recent. Since they began the project, the Engineering Club has worked on the coop as a unified force. 

“All of it is a team effort, it’s not a one man job,”  sophomore Nhat Nyguen said. 

Another club member, junior Carolyn Vincent, highlights the importance of each club member contributing in their own ways to the club’s projects. 

“A lot of our members have different strengths… so we play with each other’s strengths to get it done the best we can,” Vincent said.

The club welcomes 30 other members who are also involved in the club’s various projects. 

“It was definitely a very long process designing and deciding how we wanted to go about doing the chicken coop,” Vincent said. 

Planning isn’t just designing structures, but analyzing costs and considering the best methods to complete the project, which Vincent cited to be the most difficult part of working on the project.

“Trying to balance getting the chicken coop as efficient as it can be with the cost of actually building the chicken coop [was the most difficult part],” Vincent said. 

Along with the planning and cost analysis of the building itself, lots of administrative work goes into the club’s efforts as well. 

“The thing that took the longest was the school deciding where to put the chicken coop,” Orlewicz said. “…Eventually right on the heels of the beginning of winter break, the Engineering Club had their first build day on the project which went smoothly, and a second day right after we returned, finishing the foundation of the coop.”

As for the team behind the project, working on the coop has given the club fresh inspiration and skills that they can use on future builds with the club.

“It sparked up a whole bunch of other ideas for next year,” Orlewicz said.

These ideas include a robot and designing their own remote control cars, both expected to be done by next year, making the Engineering Club one to watch.