Scrapheap is Coming -- Time to Sign Up!

  

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 22nd to Tufts U Gantcher Center.

After two years off for the Pandemic, Scrapheap Showdown came back last year.  Here is the video of last year's Scrapheap Showdown, Good Vibrations.

The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 23rd.  It will be held at the Gantcher Center at Tufts University.  Sign-in is at noon.  

But you must register before online here before October 6th.

Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA. Click here to register online.  Somerville high school students are encouraged to register and participate.

Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on October 6th.

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams of three!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 23rd to Tufts U Gantcher Center.

Good Luck!

The link to this post ishttps://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2023/09/scrapheap-is-coming-time-to-sign-up.html

The Scrapheap Showdown is Coming --- time to get your teams together!

 

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 23rd to Tufts U Gantcher Center.

After two years off for the Pandemic, Scrapheap Showdown is finally back.  

The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 23rd.  It will be held at the Gantcher Center at Tufts University.  Sign-in is at noon.  

But you must register before online here before October 7th.

Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects, click here.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA. Click here to register online.  Somerville high school students are encouraged to register and participate.

Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on October 7th.

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams of three!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 23rd to Tufts U Gantcher Center.

Good Luck!

For questions, contact the Somerville Math Fund at mathfund@gmail.com

The link to his page is: https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-scrapheap-showdown-is-coming-time.html

Scrapheap Showdown 2019: Ship to Shore!

On October 27, 18 high school students on six teams gathered in “The Cage” in Cousens Gym at Tufts University to compete in the Somerville Mathematics Fund’s 15th annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Along with the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were also piles of foam core and paper.  The students were given their challenge: to design and build a crane on a base of MDF board. The teams worked intensely, designing, building, testing, reinforcing, and adjusting their cranes.

Time was called after 3 3/4 hours.  Now was the time for the two competitions. The first challenge was a precision test to retrieve objects from the “ship” on the floor and place these to various places on the tables (different locations were worth different points).

They had 3 minutes for this first challenge.  The second challenge was unloading bulk cargo: a strength and speed test.  They had to upload various objects (weights, marbles, coins) and the total was weighed after 2 minutes.

They had to be careful to not overload their bucket and break the crane arm.  The team that was able to raise the most, Euleroids, lifted a total of 16 pounds, 2 ounces.

Teams were ranked in each event, one thru six, with 1 getting 1 point, etc.  So the winning team had the lowest final score.

The team with the lowest overall score, was “Euleroids” (Charlie Nadeau, Iskandar Nazhar, Myles Rivera).

The second place team was the “Crimson Quackateers” (Nora Chiu, Owen Chiu, Caden Yarberry).

The third place team was "√-1 2^3  ∑ π " (i eight sum pi) (Laura Clervil, Harmanpreet Kaur, Nasreen Kaur).

The fourth place team was "i i on the π π" (i’s on the pi’s) (Brian Jian Chan, Luca Duclos-Orsello, Timothy Labounko).

The other teams were "Generic Name" (Omar Benkhayat, Alexa English, Jadrianis Vega)

and "Don't Be Trash" (Rio Hunter Black, Isra Khan, Marie Lessard-Brandt).

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were:  three $100 Target gift cards (donated by Anne Button), three $100 amazon gift cards (donated by Jay & Jasper) four 2019 Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), four $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, one $50 gift card for FlatBread and Sacco Bowl and $60 cash.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown teeshirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff of Commercial Cleaning Service.

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.

Designers & refiners of the challenge were: Sanford Bogage, Anne Button, Chase Duclos-Orsello,  Zachary Faubion, Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Richard Graf, Jay Landers, Zbigniew Nitecki, Erica Voolich.

Stanhope Framers donated the foam core; Magnificent Muffin & Bagel donated egg crates and Patricia Murphy-Sheehy, with the math teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Amy Weiss designed the T-shirts and edited the poster advertising the event at the high school.

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ, Commercial Cleaning Service, Jack Connolly of Wedgwood-Crane & Connolly, Mide Corporation, Rudy’s Restaurant, Jay & Jasper, Anne Button, anonymous, and our most wonderful host, Tufts University.

Suffolk University Catering provided the refreshments for the teams and volunteers.  Various members of the Board worked on all aspects of organizing the event and worked to make it a success along with community volunteer Scott Carlson.

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.

If these pictures aren't enough, here are some general pictures to enjoy.

©Somerville Math Fund 2019
The link to this post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2019/10/scrapheap-showdown-2019-ship-to-shore.html

Time to get your Team Together -- Scrapheap Showdown is Coming!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.
The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 27th.
Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects, click here.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA.  Go to http://www.somervillemathematicsfund.org/pdf/Scrapheap_application17.pdf to get all of the details.  Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on October 12.

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams!

Good Luck!

The link to his page is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2019/09/time-to-get-your-team-together.html

Scrapheap Showdown 2017: Get Over It!

On October 29, 30 high school students on 10 teams gathered in “The Cage” in Cousens Gym at Tufts University to compete in the 13th annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Instead of the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were piles of paper along with large cones of string.  The students were given their challenge: to design and build a four-foot-span paper bridge. The teams worked intensely, designing, building, testing, reinforcing, and adjusting their bridges.

Time was called after 3 hours.  Now was the time for the competition.  

Each of the ten bridges employed differences in design from suspension to trestles and combinations of other features.    The students' bridges competed against each other, tested for their ability to withstand “traffic” — a remote-controlled car driven across. 

Their bridges’ centers were measured for height above the table with points given for each inch above the table height up to 6 inches. The third challenge involved supporting maximum weight spread over the span of the bridge with minimal deflection.  A bamboo skewer was placed in the middle of the bridge.  The change height of the bridge could be measured by the displacement machine built by Richard Graf for a previous Scrapheap Showdown. 

Richard Graf with his machine to measure deflection to 1/16"

The bridges were going to be measured to two inches of deflection from adding weighs spread across the span of the bridge road bead.  The winning bridge was able to support more than 108 pounds with less than two inches of deflection in the center of the roadbed. 

108 lbs and counting!
Wall tiles, metal weights, and barbells
and still not deflecting more than 1"!

The 2nd place team was able to support 82 pounds.

The team with the highest overall score, was Crimson Quackateers  (Owen Chiu, Daniel Correa, Jeffery Zou). 

The Crimson Quackateers with their winning bridge.

 The second place team was the Honeybees (Tristan Brown-Vazquez, Max Nadeau, Nikolas Protopapas).  

The Honeybees with their bridge.

Third place was the Shrimps (Kenia Arbaiza, Kristina Gurung and Tayara Romero).  

The Shrimps with their bridge.

The Fourth place team was Team Take Dubs Part 2. (Qijin Chau, Gabe Kafka-Gibbons, Samuel Saron).  

Team Take Dubs, part 2 with their bridge.

Fifth place was Striking Panthers (Desi Feldman, Robert Lavey).

The Striking Panthers with their bridge.

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 & Jasper Lawson) and a combination of Museum passes (4 Science Museum including 4 to the Omni Theater, 2 Museum of Fine Arts and 2 Children’s Museum, donated by Vinny Tajeda & Maggie Rabidou). 

There was a prize for aesthetics sponsored by Jay Landers, it was a hard choice to choose the “best looking” but the winners were the Striking Panthers.

The other teams participating were Lady Highlanders (YuYing Chen, Priscila Ponce, Leslie Nava Sanchez),

Lady Highlanders with their bridge

Dumbledore's Army (Harmanpreet Kaur, Nasreen Kaur, Willow Klein), 

Dumbledore's Army with their bridge.

Team Bulldogs (Cole LaFee, John Minghetti, Dillion Tivnan), 

Team Bulldogs with their bridge.

 Team Team (Aaron Diener, Sam Diener, Dennis Gill), 

Team Team with their bridge.

The X-Man (Zachary Dion, Luca Duclos-Orsello, Kevin Pleitez).

The X-Men with their bridge.

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.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown teeshirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff of Commercial Cleaning Service.  

Designers & 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.  

Stanhope Framers donated the foam core.  Fleming Printing Co. donated the “roadbeds” made from chipboard, Michael Morgan and Patricia Murphey-Sheehy, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Amy Weiss designed the T-shirts and Yongkang Yu designed the poster advertising the event at the high school.  

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, Commercial Cleaning Service, Jay & Jasper, Susan Weiss, 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 Tony Johnson and Clarissa Westney.

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.

©Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2017/10/scrapheap-showdown-2017-get-over-it.html

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming!! Get Your Team Together Now!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.
The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 29th.
Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects, click here.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA.  Go to this link to get all of the details.  Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on October 13.

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams!

Good Luck!

Scrapheap Showdown Challenge is Coming! Get your Team Together NOW!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.
The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 30th.
Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects, click here.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA.  Go to this link to get all of the details.  Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on October 14.

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams!

Good Luck!

11th Annual Scrapheap Showdown-- Sort It Out!

On October 25, 18 teams of 3 high school students each from Somerville gathered in Gantcher Gym at Tufts University to compete in the eleventh 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 core, plus of string and tape.  The students were given their challenge: to build a machine that would sort “coins” from Roundlandia — spherical glass coins of different sizes, each into their own receptacle.

The teams worked intensely, building, testing and adjusting their sorting machines.  

They needed to learn how to not only sort the glass spherical coins by size, but also, they needed to sort out counterfeit coins made of plastic or metal which were the same size as one of the legal coins.

Time was called after 3 1/2 hours.  Now was the time for the competition.  

The teams were judged on the number of correct coins in the right container, counterfeits elsewhere, with a bonus for being able to have the number of each coin displayed at the end and all the coins poured into the hopper together, not one at a time.

Each of the eighteen sorters were interesting and sported differences for sorting the coins by size.  A couple of them even had a “balance” to weigh and redirect the two different counterfeit coins, others separated out the metal “coins” using a magnet.

The students' sorters competed against each other.  The team with the highest overall score, was “3 Musketeers” (Pratrik Maharjan, Anmol Saini, and Henry Schneiderbeck ).  

Second place was the “Rasberry Lime Seltzer” (Alex Costa, Gabriel Bruno Parreira, and Ben Stevens).  

Third place was “Team Stats” (Jonathan Cabral and Bishan Rai).  

Fourth and fifth place had a tie score, and fourth was determined by shortest time to complete the sort.  Fourth place was "Rag Tek" (Anoush Khan, Gavin LaWhite and Daniel Strauss).  

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

Sixth place was "Siri is Undefined"  (Kristina Gurung, Tayara Romero, and Anaya Reneé Luz).

Seventh place was "÷ and Conquer" (Nikolas Protopapas, Lucas Sargent, and Luca Duclos-Orsello).

Eighth place was "e to the iπ" (David Matthews, Anmol Maini, and Richie Lavey).

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were: three $100 gift cards (donated by Anne Button, Chase Duclos-Orsello and Monica Fernandes), four Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, eight passes Museum of Fine Arts and nine passes to the Rembrandt Exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts (donated by PriceWaterHouse), 3 $25 Amazon gift cards (donated by Susan Weiss) and 6 and 4 “Loaf of Bread” tickets from When Pigs Fly.

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) and also a $10 ice cream gift card (donated by J P Licks).  

Christina Bissereth, one of the competitors, was documenting the day for the Somerville High School newspaper and she shared her photos of the event.   Other pictures the volunteers took are posted here.

All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown teeshirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff of Commercial Cleaning Service.  

The other teams competing were "Team Cheng Mei," "Only Team with a Hope,"  "Team Nerrrdllz,"  "The X Factor,"  "The Trio,"  "K.R.E.,"  "The Incredibles,"  "Black Stallion," "SHS-Trio,"and "Honeybees."

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, Michael Voolich, and Susan Weiss.  Stanhope Framers donated the foam core and Rockler donated some of the magnets.  Michael Morgan and Dana Lee, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Sodexo at Suffolk University donated the food.  Amy Weiss designed the T-shirts.  

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, Commercial Cleaning Service, 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 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 post is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2015/10/11th-annual-scrapheap-showdown-sort-it.html
© 2015, Erica Dakin Voolich