Photograph by George Sakkestad

Los Gatos High seniors (left to right) Nathan Delaney, Brendan O'Neill and Max Haueter designed a device that lifted, moved and set down a makeshift Olympic torch for The Tech Museum of Innovation's 15th annual Tech Challenge. The bicycle wheel enabled the arm, which held the torch, to move.

Kids lift Olympic torch in competition

It's not sports; it's the annual Tech Challenge

By Rebecca Ray

The week of April 8-12 was spring break for most schools in Los Gatos and Saratoga. But some students spent part of their vacation inventing devices for The Tech Museum of Innovation's 15th annual Tech Challenge, which took place on April 10 at the San Jose Civic Auditorium.

The nearly 150 teams of students had to invent devices that could pick up, move and set down make-believe Olympic torches made of PVC pipe in less than three minutes. Each invention had to lift the torch from a hole that was poked into the top of one vertical cylinder, and then stick the torch in a hole that was poked into the top of another vertical cylinder that was 11 feet away.

Devices made by local students ranged from PVC pipes held together with duct tape to hand-powered pulleys to an arched polycarbonate plastic tube.

The Screaming Eagles, a team of mostly Rolling Hills Middle School students, built the polycarbonate plastic tube, which won the award for being the best device in the fifth and sixth grades. To make the torch fly from one end of the arch to the other, the students attached pins that held the torch in place to surgical tubing, which sprang back like a slingshot and shot the torch through the tube.

The Screaming Eagles also won the award for having the fastest device, which shot the torch from one hole to the other in six seconds.

Larry Gratton, the team's coach and the father of team member Jeffrey Gratton, said the team mainly went to the competition to have a good time, and that they didn't expect to win. But he said that when they attended the Tech Challenge last year, they noticed that the best devices seemed to operate in less than 10 seconds. So they met every Friday after school, starting in January, and invented a device that was reliable and fast.

The Flamin' Torches, a team of seventh-graders from Sacred Heart--Tommy Christian of Los Gatos, Blake Martin of San Jose and Deven Carroll, Andy Rohner and Steve Sloan of Saratoga--won third place overall for seventh- and eighth-graders, with their remote control vehicle made of PVC pipes.

Sacred Heart also captured four awards for design methodology. Students not only had to show judges how their inventions worked, but also had to endure question-and-answer sessions and document their work with journals.

Sacred Flames--Saratoga fifth-graders Jenna Church, Serina Gonzalez and Marcy Lopez--placed first in design methodology for fifth- and sixth-graders. They built a female figure made of wood that held the torch at the end of a battery-powered lever.

Church's brother, Michael, was on the team called Little Timmy, which won the design methodology award for seventh- and eighth-graders. The team's device, which moved on wheels, moved to the second cylinder after the first cylinder touched a switch. Once a second switch hit the second cylinder, an arm on the device lowered the torch. The switches for the three motors were perfectly timed because of the wiring, team member Quang Tran said.

At last year's Tech Challenge, the team members of Little Timmy won the top prize for their age group and the award for having the most creative design overall. The team also included John Kiely and Eric Shuffle; all four are eighth-graders at Sacred Heart.

Sacred Heart teams also snagged the second- and third-place awards for design methodology in the fifth- and sixth-grade division. The Flaming Five placed second with their remote control-powered vehicle, which ran along a track from one hole to the other. Team members Michael Guercio, J. J. Maglione, Peter McPartlan, Mathew Morales and Justin Nguyen are all fifth-graders from Saratoga.

Sixth-graders Katie Atwell, Kristin Carte, Frank Catanzaro, Katie Crimi and Ryan Morris of The Flaming Torch Extreme captured third prize with their remote control-powered pulley, which ran along a line. Attached to the pulley was a metal weed-eater clutch, which attracted a magnet that was attached to the torch.

Atwell's neighbor, Michael Willem, coached the team and allowed them to use his materials.

At least two other teams represented Sacred Heart: the appropriately named Torch Movers and the Techies.

The Torch Movers, fifth- and sixth-graders Thomas Carine, Garrett Cowles, Steven Homan, Nick Miller, Jeff Sloan and Khim Tran, built a remote control vehicle with a forklift that held the torch.

Miller said he was a little nervous during the demonstration when the ladder got stuck. But Sloan said the team members felt good because they succeeded in placing the torch in the second hole.

The fifth-graders who made up the Techies--Carson Heil of Los Gatos and Saratogans Jack Allen, Michael Fox and Ali Shakeri--designed a device similar to The Flaming Torch Extreme's, in that it involved a pulley. However, their pulley was hand-powered, and their torch was attached to it with a rope.

"It was nice to do and was a very good experience," Shakeri said. "You learn a lot--how to be patient and how to be grateful for what you have and what you get."

The team Killion--Los Gatos High seniors Nathan Delaney, Max Haueter, Dave Hasson, Brendan O'Neill and Jacob Myer, and junior Tony Bitetto--built a remote control lever made out of two-inch-thick PVC pipe with Lego motors and a forklift at the end. A bicycle wheel on the fulcrum enabled the lever to move.

Torched, a team of LGHS freshman T. J. Trolan and Bellarmine freshmen Charlie Roguson and Brandon Williams, also of Los Gatos, made their programmed device out of Legos, dowels and Popsicle sticks. Trolan, Roguson and Williams designed the device so that it would run along a wooden track from one cylinder to the other and lower the torch once a switch hit the second cylinder. Strings and a container made of Legos held the torch in place.

Eighth-graders Vali Barsan, Bobby Seddighzadeh and Xander Sporck of Saratoga, Amy Castello of Los Gatos and Bobbie Moon of San Jose made up the Myceneans.

Los Gatos sixth-grader Noah Segall, seventh-grader Trevor Stephenson and seniors Ian Gaffrey and Jake Haueter, and Saratoga sophomore Ananda Bose also participated.

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