Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
The Ritzville Jr./Sr. High School team was the winner of Objective #2, involving the building of a "green" human-powered machine.
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) were put to use during the Fifth Annual "Junkyard Wars" sponsored by Odessa High School.
The Odessa STEM team consisted of Thorsen Wehr, Trevor King, Brad Johnston, Chance Messer, Molly Schafer, Colton Messer, Camden Weber, Wyatt Haase, Eric Johnston, Thomas Parham, Megan Shafer and Rochelle Schuh (not pictured Katreace Boss).
On May 7, more than 50 students from five schools in the Bi-County joined Odessa for the 5th Annual Bi-County STEM Challenge. STEM stands for Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics. Teams from Odessa, Wilbur, Creston, Ritzville and Sprague showed up at the Odessa gym at 9 a.m. to compete in the fifth science-like "Junkyard Wars." Each team of students vied against the other schools for the traveling trophy. The Odessa High School team consisted of Trevor King, Thorsen Wehr, Wyatt Haase, Molly Schafer, Brad Johnston, Chance Messer and Thomas Parham. The junior-high team was made up of Rochelle Schuh, Megan Shafer, Camden Weber, Eric Johnston, Colton Messer and Katreace Boss. The winners of the junior-high STEM challenge were Team Ritzville, engineering a device to launch rockets carefully through selected targets.
Created by the science teachers from each school system, each team had two objectives: first, students were put into separate teams comprising a mixture from each school. Each team had to engineer a helium-filled balloon launching system capable of traveling up, but not past, eight meters in just 30 seconds. After five minutes of planning time, 15 minutes of preparation and building time, work came to a stop and the team with the tallest launch won: Christian Nelson from Creston, Olivia Hill from Wilbur, and Zeth Swanger from Sprague.
During Objective #2 and using unlimited supplies, each high school team engineered a green two-seated machine, human-powered only, to traverse a course laid out on the tennis courts. The students worked through a gorgeous day of sunshine and were amazing as always. Welders, grinders, cutting torches, electric and hand tools, metal, wood, everything was used to engineer these vehicles. Through collaboration and teamwork, coupled with the physics, mathematics and engineering used to devise the green human-powered machines, the teams were flying high that day.
After all of the dust settled, Team Ritzville was the winner of the Fifth Annual Bi-County STEM Challenge and took back the illustrious Golden Flask Award. Odessa High School science teacher Jeff Wehr and junior-high science teacher Julie Wehr congratulated all the students present during the event and said they look forward to another one next year.
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