BOICEVILLE, N.Y. — Engineering and science displays are being encouraged as a much-needed addition to Onteora school board meetings.
During the board’s session on Thursday, Feb. 13, two entries from the high school’s Science Olympiad team — a small hovercraft and a hand-launched helicopter — provided a break from budget talks and investment plans.
“We (competed) in 23 events … where we could do science,” Science Olympiad team coach Bryan Keenan said. “Just build something, alter one variable at a time, and see what happens. (It’s) the crown jewel of science. … The controlled experiment.”
Fifteen students from the 24-member team participated in a regional event at John Jay High School in Dutchess County on Saturday, Feb. 7. The team took part in 23 events, finishing in the top eight 10 times. There were 35 teams from 20 schools that competed at the event.
The Onteora team’s achievement was a first-place finish by Foster Knoche and Jenny Albright, the school board’s student representative, in the Disease Detective category, which involved epidemiology. While two demonstrations reflected a “wow” factor, the explanation of that study and a research-oriented event left the adults in the room impressed with the students’ resolve.
Alnright said, “With Disease Detective, you’re given certain variables for mathematics and then why this disease spread, why it could have been prevented, what sort of vector it was … and you’re only allowed to have one cheat sheet.”
The study involved causes, tracking, and analytics with behavioral and social factors to determine how outcomes occur.
“It’s not just study for no rhyme or reason,” Albright said. “It’s fun. It’s dedication. It’s also interesting, (and) can line up with future college plans.”
Explaining the event to board members also came with lessons in dealing with the unexpected for students Jesper Peacock and Jake Slater.
“Tragedy struck … and I had to use last year’s helicopter,” Peacock said. “I had this year’s helicopter … built it, and I was bending down to pick it up. The phone slipped out of my hand, fell on the helicopter, crushed the top propeller, and it used to be one piece that turned into three pieces. So, we got the one from my closet.”
The events also involved working in small teams, which Slater described as a process that required developing communications skills.
“For my main event … I figured out that I needed to give more precise directions to my partner,” he said. “It was kind of like social skills to … translate something into a way that someone else can understand because different people have different manners of thinking.”
Another student, Connor Gierloff, described the construction of the hovercraft as an adventure in problem solving when it came to how to get the unit to travel a designated distance in a specified amount of time.
“We have to get it as light as possible because we have a very limiting factor of how strong the fans are and the weight of the batteries,” he said.
“One of the major things that we struggled with was actually getting it off the ground,” Gierloff added. “We have the bottom motor that lifts it up and … a rear fan to get us moving forward and control how fast we move, getting us to the specific time we want.”