Marble Mayhem Video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNRinWp4PrQ

 Here is the video for this year's Scrapheap Showdown, Marble Mayhem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNRinWp4PrQ

Scrapheap Showdown: Marble Mayhem!

By Erica Dakin Voolich

On October 22, 18 high school students on six teams gathered in the Gantcher Gym at Tufts University to compete in the Somerville Math Fund’s 17th annual Scrapheap Showdown, Marble Mayhem.

Their challenge was to create a Rube-Goldberg device for marbles making creative use of triggers, jumps, loops, or elevators.  The “field” was two side by side tables held two feet apart.  One marble started its journey by being placed above one table at one corner and ended by stopping on the other table at the opposite corner.  Points were awarded according to how long the marble took to traverse the maze, how many obstacles and tricks it maneuvered through along the way, and consistency of time from start to finish.  Participants had up to five different sized marbles they could choose to use in their maze.

This year when the students arrived, the usual scrapheap pile included long pieces of foam core and wooden dowels along with the miscellaneous interesting “junk” that the Somerville Math Fund pile usually includes.  

The contestants were very busy, planning and trying different ideas, making adjustments while testing with their marbles.  One team succeeded in jumping and catching their marble from table to table.

Another team built what looked like pin ball machine, triggering multiple marbles.

A couple of teams had paths with zig-zagging paths downhill. 

 It was fun to watch each of the marble structures being tested everyone hoping their marbles would do what they planned for them to do and to do it in a timely manner.  Time was called after 3 hours. It was time for testing the different structures.  

The first place team was “Super Seniors” (Yasmin Nazhar, Atticus Borggaard, and Ellery Borggaard) with a score of 1095 points.  

Second place was “Slurm Gang” (Miles Eisenbraun, Alexander Moulton, and Robert Leoni)) with 1030 points.  

Third place was “Tech Titans” (Ali El-Saudi, Christopher Montiel, and Julian Barney) with 180 points. 

Fourth place was “Calculus Crusaders” (Liam Beretsky-Jewell and Darragh Keane) with 130 points.

The teams chose their prizes in the order they finished.  The prizes donated were three sets of two tickets to the RedSox (donated by Sam Voolich) for a game in April 2024, three $100 Target gift cards (donated by Chase Duclos-Orsello),  and 3 gift cards from Anna’s Taqueria (donated by long term Somerville Math Fund supporters).

The other participating teams were the “The Rats AAAAHHRRERRHHHH”  (Serena Wong, Rafael Ronen, and Bhavroop Kaur), and “The LEDS”  (Lily Thompson, Elias Colley, and Dash Brenner).

Designers and refiners of the challenge were members of the Somerville Math Fund Board: Fred Bernardin, Sanford Bogage, Adam Foster, Richard Graf, Dan Oshima, Jesse Stern, Erica Voolich, Susan Weiss.  Amy Weiss designed the teeshirt and Monica Fernandes designed the sponsor flyer; and Susan and Sanford designed the student recruiting and registration materials, and Sanford managed registration and the Google Classroom for this event.

Michael Morgan and Patricia Murphy-Sheehy (Head of Math Department) at Somerville High helped with suggestions and distribution help of registration materials.  The math teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Bill Trudell videoed the event for Somerville Cable EdTV Channel 15.

Again Tufts University was our wonderful host donating their gym space for a Sunday event.  Last year was our first year back after a three year COVID hiatus. This was our 17th Scrapheap Showdown and Tufts has been our host for all of these events.  

Thanks to our generous sponsors, this activity was both a fund raiser for a scholarship and three teacher grants, provided prizes for the students and allowed the students to participate without paying any registration fee.  We offered different levels of sponsorship for the event.  Thanks to all of our wonderful donors whose donations will make one scholarship available next spring and four teacher grants in January.

Gold Level (one year of a college scholarship each):

Commercial Cleaning Co./Bickoff Family, Jasper J. Lawson, PhD. & Associates, Julie Schneider, and Tufts University.

Silver Level (one teacher grant each):

East Cambridge Savings Bank, Mr. & Mrs. Donald F. McGoldrick, Winter Hill Bank and a long term sponsor.

Bronze Level (supporting Somerville Math Fund work):Chase Duclos-Orsello, A Member of the Somerville High School Faculty, Zbigniew Niticki, and Sam Voolich.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  On January 7th, we will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, we 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 https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2023/10/scrapheap-showdown-marble-mayhem.html

©Erica Dakin Voolich 2023

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

Scrapheap Showdown: Good Vibrations! The Video

 On October 23, the 16th annual Scrapheap Showdown.  You can read about all the details on the blog post 

Scrapheap Showdown: Good Vibrations!

Now you can watch the video from Somerville EdTV, recorded by Bill Trudell and edited by Joe Constantine.  

https://youtu.be/jHNkMic1aiE

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 Morphs into a Game Jam for Somerville Kids

 The Somerville Mathematics Fund

Scrapheap Showdown has gone virtual!

We are hosting a game jam!

We've created a new, virtual challenge for our

annual Scrapheap Showdown event.

Compete in teams of three on a different kind of

challenge, one where you design a game that will

be played and judge in part by the other teams.

Open to residents of Somerville who have not graduated from high school

VIRTUAL EVENT DATE:  Make your game between December 8-13th, 2020

Winner announce by December 20

Register individually or as a team by December 2nd

scan 

or go to https://forms.gle/Y2agwREQ56Cb1MgV6

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: Catapult Fest — Fall Fling!

On October 28, 27 high school students on 9 teams gathered in “The Cage” in Cousens Gym at Tufts University to compete in the Somerville Mathematics Fund's 13th annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Instead of just the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were also piles of foam core.  The students were given their challenge: to design and build a catapult on a base of  homasote  board. The teams worked intensely, designing, building, testing, reinforcing, and adjusting their catapults.

Getting ready to shoot.

Time was called after 3 hours.  Now was the time for the three competitions. The first challenge was to fling a marble contained in a balloon the farthest distance.

First teams to compete are ready to go with "i i on the pi pi"
starting and "Buoy" ready to go.

 Each team had three tries and their longest trial was counted.  The second challenge was “bowling” — throwing for accuracy as many marbles (in balloons) as possible in two minutes at empty water bottles lined up on a table.  This proved the most difficult challenge of the afternoon.

The third challenge was the craziest.  All the teams were at their own table in a circle around a kid’s swimming pool with a bucket in it.  Each team had 10 pingpong balls.  They all shot towards the pool at the same time.  Lots of pingpong balls bouncing all over!  There were points for landing in the pool, with a bonus for landing in the bucket.

Ping pong balls all over after the 3rd challenge.

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

1st place "i i on the pi pi"  [Eye on the Pi's/Prize]

The team with the lowest overall score, was “i i on the pi pi” [“eyes” on the pi’s”] (Brian Jian Chan, Luca Duclos-Orsello, Timothy Labounko).

2nd place "Crimson Quackateers"

The second place team was the “Crimson Quackateers” (Owen Chiu, Daniel Correa, Stephen Freitas).

3rd place "Euleroids"

The third place team was the “Euleroids” (Kevin  Arbaiza, Iskandar Nazhar, Myles Rivera).

4th place tie, "Buoys"

There was a tie for fourth place between “Buoys” (Samuel Newman, Tayara Romero, Henry Zou) and the

4th place tie, "Honeybees"

 “Honeybees” (Jackson Anderson, Tristan Brown-Vazquez, Max Nadeau).

"Sugar and Spice"

The other teams competing included the “Sugar and Spice” (Britney Flores, Tatiana Pineda, Nikhilesh)

"Silly Squids"

“Silly Squids”  (Alina Kaur, Parveen Kaur, Arlenny Ramierez)

"Andromeda Phenomena"

"Andromeda Phenomena" (Rio Hunter Black, Emily Howley, Isra Khan)

"625"

"625" (Nathalya Castillo, Alexa English, Jadrianis Vega)

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were:  three $100 gift cards (donated by Anne Button), four 2019 Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, 3 $75 AMC gift cards (donated by Chase Duclos-Orcello) and a combination of Science Museum passes (6 to the Omni Theater, 2 4-D Theater, 2 Butterfly Garden, 2 Planetarium and 4 Exhibit Halls ) donated by Maggie Rabidou.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown teeshirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff of Commercial Cleaning Service.

Nikhilesh Rattan -- The top fund raiser!  

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 winning fundraiser was Nikhilesh Rattan who took home a RedBones BBQ gift card.

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, and Michael Voolich.

Stanhope Framers donated the foam core; and Somerville Home Depot, the homasote.  Michael Morgan and Patricia Murphy-Sheehy, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Michael Voolich designed the T-shirts with the icon use donated by Icons8.com and Yongkang Yu designed the poster advertising the event at the high school.

Sponsors of the event included Math Department at Somerville High School, Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ, Commercial Cleaning Service, Century Bank, Jay Landers & Jasper Lawson, Anne Button, Zbigniew Nitecki and our most wonderful host, Tufts University (check out Alonso Nichols, Tufts photographer's, photos).

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 volunteers Clarissa Westney and Ben Perrin.

The link to this page is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2018/10/scrapheap-showdown-catapult-fest-fall.html
©Erica Dakin Voolich 2018