 Eric Rome, Matt Widmann, Charlie Leon, Daniel Paré and coach Keith Loebner comprise Team Olympus, one of five local teams competing in Saturday’s Tech Challenge. |
Students from Los Altos are scheduled to participate in The Tech Museum of Innovation’s 18th annual Tech Challenge student design competition Saturday.
Tech Challenge is based on The Tech’s “Design in Mind” learning model that asks students to solve a real-world problem and supports them as they work through a solution. This year, students are engineering a solution to extinguish a simulated forest fire in “Battle the Blaze.”
Two teams from Los Altos High School and three from Egan Intermediate School will participate in the event.
One of the Los Altos High teams is Team Olympus, coached by Keith Loebner. The team, comprising Eric Rome, Matt Widmann, Charlie Leon and Daniel Paré, are entering a machine they call Hades.
“We like to name many of our machines after Greek gods,” Loebner said. “We have been working every day during spring break to try and finish the device.”
The challenge this year is to put out the simulated fire in three minutes by picking up a water balloon filled with approximately 1/2 cup of water, traversing with it over several obstacles which include raised bumps and a narrow, switch-backed road, and dropping it into a cup at the top of Wildfire Ridge.
The machine takes an innovative approach to complete the challenge, Loebner said. Instead of traveling up the narrow path, it picks up the balloon with a crane-like arm and travels directly to the side of the ridge. Using a scissor-jack mechanism, the entire machine rises up the side and drops the balloon onto the simulated fire.
“We think that this innovation will appeal to the judges as well as being a faster way of accomplishing the task,” he said.
The other Los Altos High team is coached by Faisal Shaik. The coaches of the three Egan teams are Mark Winters, Sara Filsuf and Viji Jagannathan.
The goal of Tech Challenge is to stimulate students’ critical thinking skills and encourage teamwork and perseverance.
The Tech Museum of Innovation is located at 201 Market St., in San Jose.
For more information, call (408) 795-6105 or log on to www.techchallenge.thetech.org.
