FAIRFAX STUDENTS BUILD A UVM WINNING CONTRAPTION

A couple of nice color photos taken by Stina Plant made the front page of Wednesday's Messenger with the following captions under them:

From left, Jason Holloway, Mike Smith, Kelsey Peterson, Chris Wells (crouching), Ben McAvery, Jeremy Chapman, Kyle Hathaway, Nick Rock, and Pat Fitzgerald were the team members that worked on the machines. The senior team "Final Freeze" took a first place award worth $500.

Recently the Design TASC (Technology and Society Connection) team from BFA Fairfax competed in the UVM College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences TASC competition placing first in two categories. Teams created working machines to propel balls in a timed contest. Members of the junior's team "Space Turtles," didn't place in the event but showed off their project in front of the school Tuesday morning.

Fairfax students right on TASC, build a UVM winning contraption

By LEE J. KAHRS
Messenger Staff Writer

FAIRFAX — Miniature foam footballs whistled through the air in the Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax (BFA) gymnasium Tuesday, as the school celebrated the engineering feats of three teams of students.

The BFA teams competed in the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Engineering And Mathematical Sciences Design Challenges competition on Dec. 3.

The students won a total of $1,500 and laptop computers for their efforts.

The TASC- P.E.T. (Technology and Society Connection and Pet Entertainment Technology) challenges are an annual event in which UVM provides a theme and high school teams invent a contraption that meets the set requirements.

This year, the challenge was to build a contraption that would accurately throw a miniature football up to 40 feet.

There was also a marketing component sponsored by Husky, a plastic injections molding company in Milton, in which teams showed how their inventions would be useful in teaching physics to middle and elementary school students.

BFA competed against 37 teams from 18 high schools from Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York.

A Teaching Our Youth (T.O.Y.) challenge was added for the first time to the annual UVM design competition, providing elementary, middle and high school students the opportunity to teach a technology subject in a middle and elementary classroom.

Electricity, Newton's Laws, wind power, and structural towers were some of the topics covered under the T.O.Y. challenge.

The BFA T.O.Y. team of Genevieve St. Hilaire, Megan Benay, and Sara Meigs took first place in the competition. They taught third graders about the structural and historical value of columns.

"We didn't expect to win," St. Hilaire said, "but I guess we had what it took."

The team won $1,000 cash and IBM laptop computers.

The senior BFA engineering team, Final Freeze, won the $500 first place prize in the Husky Marketing Awards with their football catapult. The machine hit 79 goals in five minutes from a 10-foot distance.

The team members include Kelsey Peterson, Jason Holloway, Mike Smith, Chris Wells, and Ben McAvey.

The BFA junior team, the Space Turtles, worked feverishly to complete a spring-loaded cannon entry in time for the competition, only to have the motor burn out when they arrived at UVM. The team demonstrated the cannon on Tuesday at BFA.

'We really wanted to build something cool looking, like a cannon," said team member Nick Rock.

"At least we get to spend all the money they won," added Jeremy Chatman of the other students' successes.

Other members of the Space Turtles include Pat Fitzgerald and Kyle Hathaway.

BFA advisor and math teacher John Tague said the cash winnings would be used to fund next year's entries.

Last year, the BFA team was first runner-up in the UVM competition, winning $1,250, Tague said.

This year, the team placed sixth overall out of 18 schools.