Michael Wilkins pilots Hoss Power. Owen Cook helps set the skis and provides some force for take-off. Paula Kane
PHILLIPS — For the first time in the history of this particular project in Tom Piekart’s 8th grade science class at the Phillips Elementary School, a pair of students were awarded first place in all three of the categories judged by their other middle level teachers. Claiming titles for Fastest, Farthest, and Most Fabulous, Michael Wilkins and Owen Cook, with their sled Hooter Scooter Hoss Power, earned the first-ever Trifecta!
Their success did not come easily. After weeks of work in the science classroom, designing and constructing Hoss Power with pieces of cardboard boxes and duct tape atop a pair of skis, the boys’ learned that heat and duct tape do not mix.
Their contraption, stored between class periods in an extra-warm space adjacent to their science room, fell apart with just two days remaining to rebuild.
“Evidently, heat and duct tape do not mix,” the boys stated matter-of-factly.
When all was said and done, however, their diligent efforts were rewarded with the history-making pronouncement made over the school wide intercom system.
The cardboard sleds project has been an annual tradition for more than 15 years. Tom Piekart, who has been the science teacher at Phillips explained that previous teachers Winona Badershall and Gayle Petrie had introduced it some years before. In all those years, no sled had ever finished the course with the fastest time, traveled the farthest distance, AND been declared the most fabulously designed by consensus of the judges. The event was especially timely given that, with the upcoming restructuring in MSAD 58, it is possible this was the last running of the cardboard sleds in Phillips.
However, Mr. Piekart stated, “I hope to return to these Phillips hills for future learning activities.”
The major learning objective of this particular project is to provide hands-on experience with Newton’s Laws of Motion: an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force; the acceleration of an object depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied; and whenever one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first.
Mr. Piekart points out at the very beginning of the project that, in regard to these rules as they apply to cardboard sled-building, “gravity is your friend”. He also mentions that in an upcoming exploration, the “egg-drop”, gravity will become “the enemy”.
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