After a snowfall in the area, Mrs. Cohorst’s Physics class took a trip to Marshall High School on November 15 to compete in various events. High school students from Marshall, ALAH, Lawrenceville, Robinson, Oaktown, Red Hill, Arcola, Casey-Westfield, Martinsville, Oblong, Mattoon, and Palestine participated in the competition. Students were required to build a mousetrap car, a toothpick bridge, a catapult launcher, and the optional balsa wood airplane.

With trial and error, each of us four Physics students built a mousetrap car and a toothpick bridge. Two teams of two, Seth Bailey and Kelsey Lanham, and Macy Biggs and myself, made a catapult launcher, with the help of Mrs. Cohorst. The day seemed very long, but we all had fun watching other students and our own projects operate. We were amazed by the mousetrap cars that traveled from one end of the gym to the other.

Although we didn’t qualify for a trophy in any of our own projects, the competition also held a wild card competition. To compete in the wild card, there must be a team of 3 from each school. Teams had twenty minutes to build a balloon powered car constructed of Lifesavers, straws, paper, balloons, rubber bands, binder clips, tape, zipties, a piece of cork, and a piece of tubing.

Macy, Kelsey, and I each had very creative ideas and made our car out of the tape holder as the body of the car, straws as the axles, Lifesavers as the wheels, and used the binder clips and rubber bands to hold the Lifesavers in place. We attached a balloon to the back of the tape so the force of air would push the “car” foward. Other students were also very inventive and some even went 17 feet, while ours only went 5 inches. Despite our short distance, we placed 9th in the Wild Card and was thrilled. Even though we had fun, we were glad to be back due to it being a long and exhausting day.