Junk-Yard Sail: The Answer is Blowing in the Wind!

On October 30, 39 high school students on 13 teams gathered in “The Cage” in Cousins Gym at Tufts University to compete in the 12th annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Along with the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there was paper, lots of foam and foam core, plus of string and tape.  There was also a wind tunnel built in the middle of the gym.  The students were given their challenge: to build a wind powered craft to sail across the treacherous gym floor.

The teams worked intensely, building, testing and adjusting their wind powered crafts.  

They needed to build a craft that could not just cross the floor, but could get around an obstacle.  There were four contests. Teams were ranked by how they finished in each challenge, and based on the points earned, winners were chosen.

Time was called after 3 hours.  

Not only were various things used for sails, but the bodies of the crafts varied in design, materials and wheels.  Now was the time for the competition -- check out the pictures from the competition.  The teams were judged on speed, distance, steering around an obstacle, and weight carrying.  They were ranked by their finish in each event, with the first team getting 13 points, 2nd getting 12 and so on.  The winners were determined by their total score.

One of the wind powered crafts emerging from the wind tunnel.

The students' wind powered crafts competed against each other.

“Team Take Dubs” won the time and distance events.  

"Team Take Dubs"

“Da Ken Bone$” won the avoiding the obstacle, 

"Da Ken Bone$"

and “Universe Most Wanted” won the weight carrying event.

"Universe Most Wanted"

The team with the highest overall score (40), was “Team Take Dubs” (Qijiin Chau, Gabe K-G, Samuel Saron).  

There was a tie for 2nd place (35), and the tie was broken by one team having won one of the four events. The “Universe Most Wanted” (Quincy Garcia, Ben Novick, Zackery Shea) were 2nd. 
 “The 3 of Spades” (Youssef Atti, Michael Rosenberger, Shivanshu Sharma) were 3rd.

"The 3 of Spades"

There was a 3-way tie for fourth (34).  The tie was broken by the 4th place team having finished first in an event.  “Da Ken Bone$” 
(Daniel Correa, Desi Feldman, Ataur Rahman) finished fourth.  The fifth place team was determined by having a 3rd place in one event while the 6th had a 4th.  “The Bumblebees” (Tristan Brown-Vazquez, Max Nadeau, Patrick Raftery) were 5th 

"The Bumblebees"

and “The X-Men” (Zachary Dion, Luca Duclos-Orsello, Timothy Labounko) came in 6th.

"The X-Men"

The other teams competing in the competition were "Rag Tek," "Peanut Butter and Jelly with Cereal," "RTD," "AJE," "Lady Highlanders," "Tashakri," and "The Mongoyamotor."

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were:  three $100 gift cards (donated by Anne Button), four Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, 3 $50 Amazon gift cards (donated by Jay Landers and Jasper Lawson), and 6 ice cream cone chips from Gracie’s.

This event was for both fundraising and an intellectual challenge--all funds raised go towards a Somerville Mathematics Fund scholarship for an outstanding Somerville mathematics student.  The top fundraiser was Kelly Cachimuel who won a $50 RedBones gift card and also a $20 JP Licks gift card.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown teeshirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff of Commercial Cleaning Service.  

Designers and refiners of the challenge were: Anne Button, Chase Duclos-Orsello, Zachary Faubion, Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Miriam Gates, Richard Graf, Jay Landers, Zbigniew Nitecki, Erica Voolich, and Michael Voolich.  Rogers Foam donated the foam, Architectural Openings donated wood cuttings, Stanhope Framers donated the foam core.  Michael Morgan and Dana Lee, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Sodexo at Suffolk University donated the food.  Michael Voolich designed the T-shirts.  

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, East Cambridge Savings Bank, RedBones BBQ, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, Commercial Cleaning Service, Jay & Jasper, and our most wonderful host, Tufts University.  Various members of the Board worked on all aspects of organizing the event and worked to make it a success along with community volunteers. 

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The Link to this page is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2016/10/scrapheap-showdown-challenge-is-coming.html

©Erica Dakin Voolich, 2016

10th Annual Scrapheap Showdown-- Just Zip it!

On October 26, 8 teams of 3 high school students each from Somerville gathered in Gantcher Gym at Tufts University to compete in the tenth annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Along with the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were many pieces of paper, some foam core, lots of string and tape.

The students were given their challenge: to build two ziplines, one to move supplies to and the other to move logs back from a logging camp which lies across a river.

The goal was to move as many logs as possible and return with as little as ballast as possible on the shuttle, without anything hitting the river and being destroyed.

The teams worked intensely, building, testing and adjusting their zip lines.

They needed to learn how to maintain enough tension to support the loads, design ways of carrying the loads with not too much friction, in addition to building the supporting towers on each end.

Time was called after 4 hours.

 Now was the time for the competition.
The teams were judged on the length of the ziplines (minimum of 18 feet), the maximum logs they can carry over (rolls of pennies), the  minimum ballast (rolls of pennies) they carry back and if they can have the first zipline automatically trigger the second (a 20% bonus).

Each of the eight ziplines was interesting and sported differences in design — the length of the zipline and the amount of weight carried varied.   The two longest were 29 feet, 7.5 inches and 24 feet, 4 inches.

There were different ways of triggering the return zipline, one by a string pulling out the trigger mid-passage, others by knocking out a brace or tape when the heavier load of logs arrived over the river.

The students' ziplines competed against each other.

Repeating as the team with the highest overall score, was “Back to Basics” (Elliot Rippe, Daniel Portillo, Arjun Singh) — they won last year too.

Second place was the “Rag Tek” (Anoush Khan, Gavin Lawhite, Daniel Strauss).

Third place was “Benny” (Alexander Costa, Ben Stevens).

Fourth place was “Lady Highlanders” (YuYing Chen, Lourdes Jean-Louis, Priscila Ponce).

Fifth place was "Titans"  (Rhedise Bass, Abbe Beke, Kelly Cachimuel).

Sixth place was "Freshmans 3.0" (Cesar Benavides, Alex Colandris, Kevin Fuentes).

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were: three $100 gift cards (donated by Susan Weiss), four Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, six  passes Museum of Fine Arts and six passes to the Children’s Museum (donated by PriceWaterHouse), six passes to the Somerville Theater, and three $25 gift certificateds to D2.

The other teams competing were "Destiny" and "Random Team Name Here"

This event was for both fundraising and an intellectual challenge--all funds raised go towards a Somerville Mathematics Fund scholarship for an outstanding Somerville mathematics student.

Fundraiser Anmol Bhargo won a Newbury Comics gift card donated by the Jay Landers.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown tee-shirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff.

Designers & refiners of the challenge were: Chase Duclos-Orsello, Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Richard Graf, Jay Landers, Zbigniew Nitecki, Beth Ruskai, Erica Voolich, Michael Voolich, and Susan Weiss.  Stanhope Framers donated the foam core, DSG Communications donated the paper.  Dana Lee and Michael Morgan, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Michael Voolich designed the T-shirts.

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ , CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, the Bickoff family, Jay & Jasper, and our wonderful host, Tufts University.  Various members of the Board worked on all aspects of organizing the event and worked to make it a success along with community volunteers.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars.  They were chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars.  They were chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The link to this post is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2014/10/10th-annual-scrapheap-showdown-just-zip.html

©2014 Erica Dakin Voolich

9th Annual Scrapheap Showdown-- So Many Marbles, So little Time!

On October 20, 9 teams of 3 high school students each from Somerville gathered in Gantcher Gym at Tufts University to compete in the ninth annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Along with the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were many pieces of paper, some foam core, lots of string and tape.  

The students were given their challenge: to design and build a Marble maze which would go between the far corners of two side-by-side banquet tables at a rigidly held distance of two feet apart. The challenge was a cross between a marble maze and a Rube Goldberg machine.  

The point system gave credit for creativity of designing obstacles and tricks for their marbles’ pathways.  The teams worked intensely, building, testing and adjusting their mazes.  

While everyone was working, the President of Tufts University, Dr.Monaco, stopped by and visited with every team and spoke to each of the contestants about their designs for the projects and their educational plans.

After 3 and 3/4 hours, the competition was held.  Each team had three times to have a marble run through their maze/Rube Goldberg machine.

Each of the nine mazes was interesting and sported differences in design.  We saw marbles that jumped the tables on what looked like ski runs or shot out a track and were caught on the other table, went through loop-the-loops, flew through a hoop, zig-zagged back and forth, rode a “cup” elevator up or down, or triggered a mechanism that dropped down, raised up or in some way set off another marble.    Some rang bells or started another marble continuing down the track.  The students' mazes competed against each other.

The team with the highest overall score, was “Back to Basics” (Elliot Rippe, Arjun Singh, Daniel Portillo).  

Second place was the “Swerve” (Caterina MacDonald, Melissa Baptista, Rachel Berry).  

Third place was “Mr. Scrima” (Anthony Scrima, R J Bingham, John Mulcahey).  

Fourth place was “Junk Punks” (Kelly Cachimuel, Ben Stevens).

The other teams that competed were "BKL," "It's About the Journey,"  "Celo,"  "The B-Team," and "MC^2"

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were: three $100 gift cards (donated by Monica Fernandes, Zbigniew Nitecki, Adam Foster & Susan Weiss), four Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, four passes Museum of Fine Arts and four passes to the Children’s Museum (donated by PriceWaterHouse).  

This event was for both fundraising and an intellectual challenge--all funds raised go towards a Somerville Mathematics Fund scholarship for an outstanding Somerville mathematics student.  Fundraiser Ben Stevens won a Newbury Comics gift card donated by the Saraf Nawar.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown tee-shirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff.  

Designers & refiners of the challenge were: Chase Duclos-Orsello, Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Richard Graf, Jay Landers, Saraf Nawar, Zbigniew Nitecki, Erica Voolich, Michael Voolich, Susan Weiss.  DSG Communications donated the paper.  Cathy Cannan and Michael Morgan, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Michael Voolich designed the T-shirts.  

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ , CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, the Bickoff family, Jay & Jasper, and our wonderful host, Tufts University.  Various members of the Board worked on all aspects of organizing the event and worked to make it a success along with community volunteers. 

The Somerville Times and The Somerville Journal covered the event both online and in their published versions.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars.  They were chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The link to this post is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2013/10/9th-annual-scrapheap-showdown-so-many.html

©2013 Erica Dakin Voolich

8th Annual Scrapheap Showdown-- Out on a Limb! Can you Cantilever?

On October 28, 8 teams of 3 high school students each from Somerville gathered in “The Cage” at Cousens Gym at Tufts University to compete in the eighth annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Instead of the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were many pieces of paper, some foam core, lots of string and tape.  The students were given their challenge: to design and build a cantilever out of paper, tape and string.  They could use foam-core and clamps to build and attach the base to their table    The teams worked intensely, building, testing. 

Time was called after three hours.  Now was the time for the competition.  Each team was judged by how well their cantilever could support weights at the end of the arm with minimal displacement.  There was a hook at the end of the cantilever where a bucket with weights was hung for the trials to determine the relative stiffness and strength.  They each had six trials, keeping the best score using this equation:

Beam stiffness  = W L³   

                        3√D

W = weight, L = length, D = displacement

The students' cantilevers competed against each other.  The team with the highest overall score, was “Ace" (Flor Duarte, Emily Mei, Anthony Melchor-Montiel).  

Second place was the “Freshmen” (Jefferson De La Cruz, Cesar Benavides, Ben Stevens). 

Third place, “G.I.R. (Geninuses in Rebellion” (Nicholas Menezes, Christina Joo, Harrison Grams). 

“W = R.P.S. (“Omega” = RPS)” (Prajwal Acharya. Ngawang Tsering, Ruthie Grossman) came in Fourth.    

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.  The other teams that participated in the event were the LuCKY GeNiUSEs, and the Team Pandora, and the Misfits, and the Bubots.  

The prizes donated were: $100 gift cards (donated by Jay Landers & Jasper Lawson & Saraf Nawar, four Red Sox tickets (Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, six passes to the Aquarium & Museum of Fine Arts and 4 passes to the Children’s Museum donated (PriceWaterHouse).  This event was for both fundraising and an intellectual challenge--all funds raised go towards a Somerville Mathematics Fund scholarship for an outstanding Somerville mathematics student.  

Fundraiser Theodora Babilye won a Newbury Comics gift card donated by the Voolich family.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown tee-shirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff.  

Designers & refiners of the challenge were: Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Richard Graf, Jay Landers, Saraf Nawar, Zbigniew Nitecki, Erica Voolich, Michael Voolich, Susan Weiss.  DSG Communications donated the paper, Kanayo Lala gave engineering advice.  Cathy Cannan and Michael Morgan, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Michael Voolich designed the T-shirts.  Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, the Bickoff family, Jay & Jasper, RedBones BBQ and our wonderful host, Tufts University.  Various members of the Board worked on all aspects of organizing the event and worked to make it a success. 

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars.  They were chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.