Keweenaw Report Your Source for Local News and Sports
There are no medals but the competition is still pretty stiff.
High school students showed off their engineering skills at a special competition on the campus of Michigan Tech.
It’s the 24th annual Engineering Olympics put on by the Center for Pre-College Outreach.
Roughly 150 students from seven western Upper Peninsula schools took part.
MTU Center for Pre-College Outreach Coordinator Liz Fujita said the competition involves pitting your team’s machine against another’s.
Fujita said, “All the machines are built by the students, usually it’s part of a class—a physics of engineering class or something like that. So, the students design them, they test them, they get them all ready at school and then they come here to try them out for actual points.”
Among the challenges were to build a trebuchet that can score a basket, a Mackinac bridge replica made from toothpicks that can withstand some weight, and a mousetrap powered car.
Like the one built by Watersmeet High School student Conner Voegtline and his team. Voegtline said, “It was challenging. We had a few wheels fall off and break at some point so we had a few setbacks, lot of late nights, but we pretty much just take some basic household items, really, and put it all together.”
