Each month Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School students are given the opportunity to compete in an engineering challenge. The goal of the challenge, according to school officials, is to give students an opportunity to experience the work process of engineering a design challenge, and to collaborate with one another to get the job done well, in a different competition than the yearly science fair.
The students are issued a design challenge at the meet. Working in teams of two or three, they have 45 minutes to complete the task. Then the designs are evaluated to determine the meet winners.
The March Challenge was to create a marker that could draw the longest line using 1 milliliter of ink. Each team was given ink, a variety of absorbent materials such as cotton, felt, sponge, and filter paper, and some glass, plastic, and rubber tubing for options to encase the materials to make the marker. To evaluate the marker designs, a team representative drew lines until white spotting or a non-distinct edge appeared. The lengths of each team’s lines were totaled to determine the winners.
First place went to Kevin Montambault, Peter Ruimerman, and Galen Mayhew (660 inches); second place to Willow Wunsch, Andrew Ruimerman, and Thorpe Karabees (385 inches); and third place to Chris Aring, Zach Bresnick, and Jared Livingston (363 inches).
All members of winning teams accumulate points over the season and are eligible to become grand winners of the challenge at the school year’s end.
