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Students bring mousetrap cars, minds to problem-solving competition

Team Peachy Peaches watches their vehicle roll toward a coffee can during a Mind-A-Mazes competition while judge Tony Lewis (left) prepares to measure the distance on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.
Ashlyn O'Hara
/
KDLL
Team Peachy Peaches watches their vehicle roll toward a coffee can during a Mind-A-Mazes competition while judge Tony Lewis (left) prepares to measure the distance on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.

How do you build a car powered by a mousetrap? On Saturday, there were at least 100 kids at Skyview Middle School who could tell you. The school hosted the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s annual student problem-solving competition.

Bleachers full of students, families and friends erupt into cheers as a handmade car hits a metal coffee can at the end of a 25-foot lane in Skyview’s gymnasium.

A car built by Kenai Middle School team the Peachy Peaches successfully hits a coffee can as part of a Mind-A-Mazes competition at Skyview Middle School on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.
Ashlyn O'Hara
/
KDLL
A car built by Kenai Middle School team the Peachy Peaches successfully hits a coffee can as part of a Mind-A-Mazes competition at Skyview Middle School on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.

Only three teams out of 37 achieved that goal at this year’s Mind-A-Mazes competition. The annual event is held under the district’s gifted and talented program. This year, it brought together students from more than a dozen district schools as far away as Fritz Creek.

Soldotna Montessori Charter School student Brooklynn Bott crouches next to a small car, about the size of a shoebox. It’s got CDs for wheels and a black and white checkered flag that raises as the car rolls forward.

“So basically how it goes, is you twist the dental floss, which is connected to the flag in this case,” Bott said. “ … You twist it on the axle. When you set the mousetrap off, it causes the flag to go up. And since it’s connected to the axle, it causes it to go forward.”

Bott’s team – the Nerds – includes fellow students Mira Garcia, Alaska Hippchen and Escher Nash. They were one of the groups to hit the can.

They went through four prototypes before landing on the car design that helped them snag second place in the competition’s junior division.

“We kept trying, and we came up with this, which can go 45 feet,” Bott said.

From left, Soldotna Montessori Charter School Students Eschel Nash, Alaska Hippchen, Mira Garcia and Brooklynn Bott celebrate a successful run of their vehicle during a Mind-A-Mazes competition on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.
Ashlyn O'Hara
From left, Soldotna Montessori Charter School Students Escher Nash, Alaska Hippchen, Mira Garcia and Brooklynn Bott celebrate a successful run of their vehicle during a Mind-A-Mazes competition on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.

The car challenge, which teams had several weeks to prepare for, is worth 75% of a team’s final score. The rest comes from a spontaneous challenge. This year, it was to build a tower out of mystery materials in 10 minutes. Points were awarded both for how tall the tower was and how much weight it could hold.

Bella Eskelin is on Team Peachy Peaches, along with Scarlett Bernard, John Clark and Gavin Sansotta. Their team won this year’s junior division. Their car hit the coffee can and their tower held a full pound of weight. For the tower challenge, Eskelin said they prioritized strength over height.

“We're gonna get no points if it collapses, which is just too big of a risk,” she said. “So we decided to go with, like, short but strong. So we went with, like, a two-inch, like, a platform, basically. And then we used a pound, so we got 22 points in total.”

Eskelin says the team was also strategic about the design of their car. She points to the stick that lifts when the mouse trap goes off.

“It's 17 inches, like, from the tip of the arm all the way around,” she said. “So that means it's 17 inches of pull, like, during the whole thing. And a wider dowel makes it like, even longer because of like – it doesn't have to be wrapped around as many times. So it's more like energy coming through.”

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Superintendent Clayton Holland measures the height of a tower built during a Mind-A-Mazes competition on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.
Ashlyn O'Hara
/
KDLL
Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Superintendent Clayton Holland measures the height of a tower built during a Mind-A-Mazes competition on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.

Engineer C.O. Rudstrom was one of the competition judges. He’s an engineer and a project manager with the City of Soldotna and says engineering schools should do more hands-on projects like Mind-A-Mazes. In the spontaneous competition, he says the simplest solution usually worked the best.

“That was kind of ironic, but that's the way engineering goes,” he said. “Sometimes, you spend all this time crafting all these really complicated ideas and sometimes the simple solution is so obvious, you know? You miss the forest for the trees, I guess.”

In the car competition, Rudstrom says that vehicles with wheels securely fastened to the axle seemed to roll the best.

Members of Team CR7s, from West Homer Elementary School, said the wheels were the hardest part of the competition. Here are teammates Gabe Linegar and Brady Wert.

From left, West Homer Elementary School students Brady Wert, Easton Owen and Gabe Liniger watch their vehicle during a Mind-A-Mazes competition on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.
Ashlyn O'Hara
/
KDLL
From left, West Homer Elementary School students Brady Wert, Easton Owen and Gabe Liniger watch their vehicle during a Mind-A-Mazes competition on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 near Soldotna, Alaska.

“We had some difficulties today,” Linegar said. “Our wheel broke off.”

“The hardest part about our car was probably the wheels,” Wert said.

“Because they had to be so straight,” Linegar added.

“Because if they weren’t straight, then the whole thing wouldn’t work,” Wert said.

Back on Team Nerds, Brooklynn Bott says winning isn’t everything.

“I would say that even if you lose, that’s not the point,” she said. “The point is having fun.”

An award ceremony capped the day. The three highest-scoring teams in each division were recognized with plaques, as were two teams who received “Judge’s Choice” awards for creativity.

Junior Division:

  • Spontaneous Problem Solving 1st – Soldotna Elementary ‘The Ratatatatouilles’ and West Homer Elementary ‘CR7’s’
  • 3rd place Overall – Seward Elementary ‘The Eagles’
  • 2nd place Overall – Soldotna Montessori Charter School ‘The Nerds’
  • 1st place Overall – Kenai Middle ‘The Peachy Peaches’
  • Judges Choice – Soldotna Elementary School – Winning Bobbleheads

Intermediate Division:

  • Spontaneous Problem Solving 1st – Kenai Middle ‘Team Bluey’
  • 3rd place Overall – Kenai Middle ‘Top T.I.E.R.’
  • 2nd place Overall – Kenai Middle ‘Team Bluey’
  • 1st place Overall – Nikiski Middle School ‘Pepsi Lovers’
  • Judges Choice – Nikiski Middle School ‘Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice’

Corrected: October 22, 2024 at 11:04 AM AKDT
A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Escher Nash.
Prior to joining KDLL's news team in May 2024, O'Hara spent nearly four years reporting for the Peninsula Clarion in Kenai. Before that, she was a freelance reporter for The New York Times, a statehouse reporter for the Columbia Missourian and a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. You can reach her at aohara@kdll.org