Van Antwerp students are reigning Middle School
Science Bowl regional champs, again For the fourth consecutive
year a five-student team from Van Antwerp Middle
School captured the regional Middle School
Science Bowl at the GE Global Research Center in
Niskayuna. With the win, the team advances to
the national competition in Colorado in June.
The Science Bowl tests the academic knowledge of
middle school teams during a fast-paced
quiz competition answering questions
in the categories of science and math. Student
teams also face off in a hydrogen fuel cell car
competition, which provides “hands-on” science
and engineering experience and challenges
students to design, build and race model cars.
Members of the 2008 team, including veterans Mike
Barnes and Gabe Holodak, and newcomers Talia
Salenger, Troy Manchester and Colin Sweeney,
dominated the quiz show portion of the
competition and finished in second with their fuel cell car.
They competed with students from eight other
area middle schools and won the overall
competition with the best average score on the
fuel cell car quiz and were undefeated in all
academic competitions, which took place
throughout the afternoon.
“The hydrogen fuel cell car is built exclusively
by the team and is designed to run a 10 meter
track. Fastest car wins,” said Connie Soron,
science teacher and team advisor. In previous
years, Soron explained that her team's cars have
won with an average 10-second time for 10
meters. “This year we were given better
performing fuel cells and better motors so our
time was just over four seconds.”
The VA fuel cell car was so fast, in fact, that
during the first few trial runs the team had
trouble keeping it on the track.
“The speed of the car, along with the slick
surface of the track did provide some concerns
as the car spun out of control within the first
two meters of the track in our trial runs,”
Soron said. The students, who have been working
together on the fuel cell car project since
January, quickly made a few adjustments to
prevent the tail-end of the car from
fish-tailing. The modification worked, and the
team won every race except the final one, when
another school’s car beat VA’s by one second.
The U.S. Department of Energy sponsors the
National Science Bowl for student teams at both
the middle and high school levels. The academic
competition challenges students to learn more
about math and science and raises awareness
about careers in those fields.
For the fourth consecutive
year a five-student team from Van Antwerp Middle
School captured the regional Middle School
Science Bowl at the GE Global Research Center in
Niskayuna. With the win, the team advances to
the national competition in Colorado in June.