The North High School Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) Club's mousetrap car and Merrill Middle School’s “egg carton” won first place in the 10th Annual Engineering, Science and Technology Design Contest sponsored by Colorado State University - Pueblo on Saturday, March 13.

North High School teams also won second and third place in the "Say It/Do It" competition and competed in the Egg Drop competition as well.

For the mousetrap vehicle competition, contestants constructed a "vehicle" that uses a standard one-spring mousetrap as its sole means of propulsion. Vehicles were placed on the starting line, where they remained unattended until the judge signaled the contestants to activate the spring of their mousetraps. The objective of the contest was to design and build a vehicle that will travel 27 feet as quickly as possible. The key to success is high acceleration and velocity. The vehicles were evaluated by determining the time it took for them to travel a 27-foot test track.

In Say It/ Do It, a team of two students attempts to reconstruct a Tinker Toy model using verbal instructions. This process involves the successful use of problem solving, observation, imagination, verbal communication skills and teamwork.

For the egg drop competition, students must drop a raw, large, white chicken egg from twenty-five feet, come to rest within a 10-foot circle and not crack or break the egg. The lightest cage/device that causes the egg to survive its fall and lands within the 10-foot circle is declared the winner.

For more information about the competition, access http://ceeps.colostate-pueblo.edu/DesignContest.

Colorado MESA, a statewide program, is designed to encourage women, minority and economically disadvantaged elementary, middle and high school students to prepare themselves for a college education and to major in engineering, science, computer science, business or other math based careers.

At North High School, MESA students:

Build Computational Science skills - They work on projects that combine mathematics, science and engineering and use computers, data networks and scientific visualization to simulate real-world problems/events. They build 3-D models to augment their computer models.

Augment Literacy skills - Develop writing and speaking skills and expand their English vocabulary.

Build a School to Career Bridge - Investigate career opportunities in fields of technology, engineering and science.

This year North’s MESA toured college campuses at: CU - Boulder, Colorado School of Mines and CU - Denver. MESA also visited the new Gates Planetarium, Space Odyssey, and Machu Picchu exhibits, and took in the IMAX movie of Lewis and Clark and Coral Reef Adventure. The students participated in science fairs building: mousetrap cars, boats from gallon jugs and duct tape, catapults, egg drop survival kits, websites, models of the human eye and newspaper bridges.

For more information, contact George Moreno, North High School, 303-964-2700.