High school students at Greenwich Academy have been busy learning the ins and outs of home construction—with gingerbread.

Students in the school's Engineering and Design Lab carefully planned their designs, first with sketches, and then with cardboard prototypes before going to work on the gingerbread itself, Greenwich Time reported.

"We started by looking up pictures of every gingerbread house, and then we drew a sketch," said Kate Warren, a senior. "Then, we made a sketch on (Adobe) Illustrator, so we had to come up with dimensions and they had to fit this much gingerbread — 16 by 24 in."

When it came time to build the houses themselves, teaching fellow Emily Dixon helped students laser cut sheets of gingerbread before they glued the pieces together with frosting. Dixon said she got the idea from another teacher while attending a conference.

Students supplemented their designs with LED lights, wires, batteries, circuit boards, music, written code and more, Greenwich Time reported.

"I learned about optimization of rectangle space — because we only had one sheet of gingerbread — and also integrating a prototype into an actual full-blown model," said Megan DeMott, a senior.

When complete, the gingerbread houses will be on display at Greenwich Academy.

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