Smell of success
Local students place top 3 in K’nex challenge
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McVEYTOWN -- A team of Lewistown Intermediate School students is taking in the sweet smell of victory -- powered by manure.
Students Christopher Moon, Kaitlyn Jefferys, Parker Kearns and Rickie Hannon were third place finishers in the 2017 K'nex STEM Design Challenge, held Thursday at Tuscarora Intermediate Unit 11 in McVeytown. The team placed behind other fourth- and fifth-grade students from Huntingdon Area and Central Fulton school districts.
The competition challenged teams of four students to design and create an environmentally-friendly amusement park ride. Kits of nearly 1,400 K'nex building pieces and a motor were made available to teachers by the TIU. Students built ride prototypes ahead of the competition and kept journals to document their progress.
On Thursday morning, students gathered at the TIU with only their paper documentation in hand. They had two hours to re-build their amusement rides from the ground up, using blueprints and journals they created during the design process. Once finished, each group presented their model to a panel of judges.
Moon, Jefferys, Kearns and Hannon presented "Whiplash," a spinning thrill ride. They said the ride was powered by animal manure.
"We turned poop into potpourri," they told the judges.
In an interview after their win, the students said they felt "pretty good" about how they placed among a room full of other teams.
"We made our own ride," Kearns said. "It may have acted like something else, but it actually was our own."
The students said they used inspiration from a ride at Knoebels Amusement Park to create their own unique design.
As for the manure, Jefferys said park-goers won't notice a thing.
Animal manure is simply the raw product used to create a clean, odor-free energy pellet.
"The smell is taken out as it's (animal manure) turned into a pellet," she explained.
The pellets are then burned in a furnace connected to a steam engine, Moon added.
By the time riders take their seats, there is no lingering scent left from the farm.
Several other teams of LIS students also competed in Thursday's challenge. Among them was a team of Lyza Underhill, Caden Brumbaugh, Amaya Curry and Ian Clark, all who built "Solar Cyclone," a rollercoaster powered by solar panels on wheels. The team said the portability of the energy system allows it to be moved into the most direct sunlight.
Josiah Boyer, Trevor Miles, Zoe Pruitt and Garrett Miller, who was absent for Thursday's event, designed "The Chamber," a spinning ride powered by solar energy and a windmill.
Other LIS groups used vegetable oil, water and other alternative energy sources to power their rides.
A group from Sacred Heart School, composed of Landon Mazur, Kohen Wert, Addie Wilburne and Lily Rivera created "The Double G" -- "Double G" standing for green gravity. Wilburne said riders are contained in an elevator-like car that is pulled up a chamber by a motor-powered pully system. Gravity then allows for the car to drop, creating a thrill on less energy.
The first place team from Huntingdon Area School District will advance to state competition.