By Jill Gosche, jgosche@advertiser-tribune.com
FOSTORIA - After about two months of planning, students from Fostoria Middle School got the chance to show off their creations Friday.
Eighth-graders participated in the Honeywell/SAE International Student Automotive Design Challenge. According to an e-mail release, students from six countries received hands-on math and science training by participating in the program, which started Sept. 15. The program challenged teams of students to build their own small vehicles.
Friday, they presented their completed projects to a panel of judges, and the judges selected one team's creation to compete in the global competition.
"I thought it was a great learning opportunity for the kids," said Laura Pinkston, gifted-and-talented teacher.
Bob Teeple, president of United Auto Workers Local 533, said students started the project with kits, had to present their toys in order to be able to sell them and learned about ratios and resisters. They also learned about the importance of doing biographies and about teamwork, he said.
"They learned about product development, market research and presentations," he said.
Honeywell employees, such as engineers, helped the students develop their products.
Jeff Goldacker, plant manager, said he thinks it is good for the facility's engineers to get out into the community and share what they do on a regular basis. He said he thought it was neat the students did marketing research and built their cars according to the information.
"It's a great little project for them," he said about the competition.
Eighth-graders Aaron Hinkle, Clay Lamb, Trey Sander and Anthony Thomas made a vehicle called "BOOM."
Hinkle said they made the car in the shape of a dynamite box. It played a song via an implanted cell phone when its handle was pushed. The group glued a pencil in the handle that pushed a button and prompted the music.
"We made it so it can go 3 meters in 3 seconds," he said.
Sander said the team learned to split up work to get their tasks done, and Thomas said they learned a lot.
"We learned about ratios and how much weight a car could hold and how fast it can go," he said. "Carpet kind of slows it down."
Casey Babb, Gabe Delarosa, Austin Robbins, Garret Sferro and Markus Tucker made a toy fire truck they called "Z1." Tucker said they designed it to go up a 30-degree incline.
"We tested it today. It didn't quite work," he said. "We tried it yesterday, and it worked."
Robbins, who supplied the truck for the project and served as the main engineer, said the team members worked on it "every minute we could get."
"Half the time, I didn't even eat lunch because I was working on it," he said.
