Students bounce their way into the district STEM challenge.

Winners of the windmill challenge compete in the STEM challenge to go to districts.

The school wide STEM challenge took place on November 1st and 2nd. The winners of the Windmill Challenge were participating in it. The winners of the STEM challenge move on to the district competition.  

The challenge that the participants were given was to build a catapult and they could only use: 10 popsicle sticks, six rubber bands, one binder clip, a plastic spoon, a plastic cup, and one clothespin. They had about two hours to build their catapult and they were in groups of four. There was about 22 groups and they tested their catapults on a long strip of paper. The catapults were set at the beginning of the paper and a member from the group shot a marble off the catapult to see how far the marble could go without bouncing. The place where the marble hit was marked on the paper.

Science teachers Melissa Hightower and Jason Dickerson were overseeing and recording the results of the STEM challenge. Hightower explained how there were a couple groups who she thought would win. Freshman Dawson Coffman and Trevor Bloomer had practiced their catapults several times and felt confident that they were going to win. “Our catapult is better because it’s built better. When we practiced it yesterday it went across the room so it goes farther than some of the other groups,” said Coffman and Bloomer.

In third place Freshmen Loni Clark, David Richardson and Jackson Clark. In second place Freshmen Nate Snyder, Madison Hill, Harrison Stidmon and Hannah Decker. And finally, in first place Freshmen John Blake, Robert Luallen and Cole Tennili are going to the district STEM competition in January.  Blake and Luallen are excited for the next competition and think they will do well.