Zip it... Mars Supply Run

On October 18th, 20 high school students on seven teams gathered in the Breed Memorial Hall at Tufts University to compete in the Somerville Math Fund’s 20th annual Scrapheap Showdown, “Zip it:  Mars Supply Run”

Our first Scrapheap Showdown was actually 22 years ago in 2005 — we had a hiatus due to COVID.  In the spring of 2005, a group of Somerville High School students came to a meeting to brainstorm ideas for a fun fundraiser to replace a walk around a lake that was ending.  They suggested we do a junkyards war like they watched on TV.  I couldn’t imagine sending students into any of the many junkyards nears Union Square then, so instead we created our own Scrapheap pile.

Set the scene: the directions the teams received:  

”A dust storm has stranded a rover crew at the bottom of a canyon on Mars.  Their food supply is stationed at the base of the canyon rim.  They only connection to the crew below a single cable  stretched across the gap.  Their mission was to build a carrier rides the cable and drops an emergency ration pack onto the rover’s landing pad.  Land it dead center and the crew eats well. Miss, and the rations are lost in the canyon.  The carrier must also keep going to the far side of the canyon, where a second team is waiting to reuse it.  You get three attempts”

This year’s problem was to build a zipline between two tables 8 feet apart. The zipline needed to be able to not only run between the two tables but to be able to automatically drop a package of rice the middle of the trip.  They could not touch the zipline once the carrier was released, everything needed to be built on the top of the two tables (nothing below) and a max of 4 feet above the table.

Each team had two tables, 8 feet apart, with a piece of  tape in the middle for them to practice with before the competition. When the competition was to begin, there was a long sheet of paper marked off in feet, as target with points when the bag of rice landed on it.

The usual pile of interesting “junk” was in the scrapheap in the middle of the room.  They built and tested their ziplines for the competitions.  The students worked for two and one-half hours and then it was time to test their ziplines.

Some ziplines were made of strong string, braided strong string, or even end-to-end dowels wrapped in tape. Most were propelled by gravity, one by rubber bands.  Some had cup inside cup that tipped with one cup dropping away,  others had something that they hit and tipped, or pulled something open.  Some had a zipline and another line with a trigger.

The scoring had two parts:  Accuracy Points + Distance Points.

Accuracy points based on the white with red striped target on the floor.  If the bag of rice landed in the middle, 100 points.  There was partial credit for landing on the target, but not in the center section depending upon how far from middle. If you missed the target totally, zero points.

Distance points:  100 points for the zipline ending at the second table.  Stop before dropping the rice, 0 points.  Stop within 4 feet of destination, 25 points; stop, within 2 feet of destination 50 points.  

Each team had three tries. Every team was able to get the zipline to run the second table on at least once if not all three tries.  What distinguished the teams was the accuracy points.

At the end of the completion, two teams, team “Momo Muchers”

 and “Scrap-Tangent” were tied.

So we needed a head-to-head zip-off to determine the winner.

The machines were so well-made and able to have repeated runs without breaking down and so it took three rounds before Scrap-Tangent was the winner and Momo Munchers was second.

First place was “Scrap-Tangent” (Eva Meade, Sonai Babios, Annabelle Foster)

Second place was “Momo Munchers” (Pranjal Archarya, Manreet Kaur, Ahon Shakir)

Third place was “Mechanical Mayhem” (Armaan Singh, Jasleen Kaur, Paras Verma)

Fourth place was “Terminal Velocity’ (Connor Bicknell, Antonio Graham)

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 2026, and gift cards donated by Dragon Pizza in Davis Sq, and along with Target cards from an anonymous donor.

The other participating teams were “Calculator Crusaders” (Ashton Moore, Raghav Kaushal, Sushant Sharma) and

 “Gravity Gradients” (Jack Matsuaki, Autumn Lane, Euan Foster), and

 “Powerpuff Girls” (Gina Chagnon, Hannah Baxter, Evelyn Mertl Kime).

Designers and refiners of the challenge were members of the Somerville Math Fund Board: Fred Bernardin, Sanford Bogage, Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Jay Landers, Dan Oshima, Kathleen Oshima, Rishab Sharma, Erica Voolich, Susan Weiss.  Amy Weiss designed the teeshirt and Monica designed the sponsor flyer; and Susan and Sanford designed the student recruiting and registration materials, and Sanford managed registration 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.  Jeff Argenziano  videoed the event for Somerville Cable EdTV Channel 15.  And we look forward to the video of the event uploaded to YouTube produced by Joe Constantine by EdTV for Somerville.

Again Tufts University was our wonderful host donating their event space for a Sunday event. This was our 20th 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 teacher grants, provided prizes for the students and allowed the students to participate without paying any registration fee as students did in the the earlier years.  We offered different levels of sponsorship for the event.  

Thanks to all of our wonderful donors whose donations will make first years of three of our renewable scholarships available next spring and four teacher grants in January.

Gold Level (one year of a college scholarship): East Cambridge Savings Bank, Jasper and Jay, and Tufts University.

Silver Level (one teacher grant) Maren Chiu, Michael Chiu, Jasper and Jay, and the Winter Hill Bank.

Bronze Level  (supporting Somerville Math Fund work):  Sanford Bogage, Adam Foster,  Midé Technology Corp, a couple of long term anonymous sponsors, Sam Voolich and Winter Hill Bank.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  This is our 26th year!  On January 7th, we will be processing teacher grant applications for up to $500 for math classroom materials. In March, we will be processing scholarship applications for our renewable $1500/year math and science scholarships.   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.

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