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Spaghetti dinner at Second Presbyterian Church

Tales from the border: 2 weeks along the US-Mexico frontier

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Jimmy Aton wanted two notches in the wooden dowel, but files and knives were not part of the competition.</p><p>His solution, in designing a rubber band-powered catapult for the Engineering Olympics on Friday: a wood screw scraped back and forth across the dowel makes a fine rasp, forming two semi-circular grooves.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re just going with the flow,&#8221; the Crestwood High School junior said with a smile as he and teammate Von Gushka devised a catapult from PVC pipes, wood scraps (one still had a Lowe&#8217;s pick-up label on it), duct tape, screws and glue.</p><p>The objective: shoot a small ball to accurately span a set distance and hit a fixed target.</p><p>It was one of five challenges 80 students from eight regional schools took on at the event hosted by Wilkes University at the school&#8217;s Arnaud C. Marts center. The prize: annual scholarships if the student enrolls at Wilkes.</p><p>Pittston Area High School students Selena Rubino and Emily Jobson conceded they had decided who was in charge of their catapult project based on past experience and current skill sets. Jobson, a senior had helped design an iron-oxide filer in the governor&#8217;s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) competition earlier this year, but said that project was &#8220;more complicated,&#8221; so she gladly ceded leadership of the simpler catapult challenge to Rubino.</p><p>Rubino had a different take.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in charge because she can&#8217;t use a drill,&#8221; she laughed.</p><p>In the end, the pair nixed the rubber bands and springs others were using to power their catapults, opting instead for a weight on one end. The further down they pull the ball-loading side of the machine, the higher the weight on the other end, and the faster the ball is propelled upon release.</p><p>While most events, like the catapult, were one-and-done &#8212; a time limit on design and build, then compete &#8212; the Lego challenge required the two-person teams to complete five different mini-projects, going from table to table with nothing but a pile of the plastic bricks, some written or visual instructions on what to built and five minutes to build it.</p><p>Dunmore High School Juniors Alyssa Bielenski and Alexa Fangio were near the end of the five-table cycle, on a challenge that required assembling an actual, off-the-shelf Lego kit from the kit instructions. The other challenges were written instructions for non-kit builds.</p><p>They scrambled to make several little items &#8212; tables with food and drinks, chairs and other mini-furniture &#8212; and kept struggling to find which pieces snapped how to what.</p><p>&#8220;I work everyday with Legos at the mall,&#8221; Alyssa said, but it was far from an advantage. The mall includes a Lego play area, and rather than build with them, &#8220;I only have experience cleaning them up,&#8221; she frowned.</p><p>So, not the same thing as snapping them hastily together?</p><p>&#8220;Not at all.</p><p>Fear not. Despite having more extra pieces than seemed logical &#8212; likely thrown in to throw them off &#8212; they put it all together accurately.</p><p>Other challenges included two involving electronics and one distributing water through plastic tubing.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Dunmore High School students Amanda Lucas, 16, and Anna Chiaro, 17, work on a circuit board that will light up a lightbulb during the Wilkes University Engineering Olympics on Friday, April 7. 4/7/17. Sean McKeag | Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/web1_TTL040717engineer1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Dunmore High School students Amanda Lucas, 16, and Anna Chiaro, 17, work on a circuit board that will light up a lightbulb during the Wilkes University Engineering Olympics on Friday, April 7. 4/7/17. Sean McKeag | Times Leader</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/web1_TTL040717engineer2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Forest City High School students Chris Karwan and Noah Yates work on their catapult project for the Wilkes University Engineering Olympics at Wilkes University's Marts Center in Wilkes-Barre on Friday, April 7.  4/7/17. Sean McKeag | Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/web1_TTL040717engineer2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Forest City High School students Chris Karwan and Noah Yates work on their catapult project for the Wilkes University Engineering Olympics at Wilkes University's Marts Center in Wilkes-Barre on Friday, April 7.  4/7/17. Sean McKeag | Times Leader</caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Legos, catapults, water and electrons: Students vie in Wilkes Engineering Olympics