Broome-Tioga BOCES hosted its annual Engineering Day November 10, welcoming hundreds of students from districts in our region. As always, Susquehanna Valley was there!
Richard T. Stank Middle School teacher Kurt Rezucha took a dozen students (three teams of four students each) to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) event and guided the students as they competed in building a Rube Goldberg machine. "The students were given a table and a box filled with random objects, from which they had two hours to construct a Rube Goldberg machine within certain guidelines," said Mr. Rezucha. Participating students from RTS Middle School: Allicyn Bisaha, Tyler Blain, Michael Bogart, Taylor Clark, Robert Fiske, Samantha Gale, Maddison Hayward, Macadia Heavey, Sakina Husseini, Kaleigh MacBlain, Hannah Piscina, and Daniela Ramos.
While the students did not place in the competition this year, they had a lot of fun, judging from some of the testimonials they shared with Mr. Rezucha:
"I had a lot of fun. The pressure made it more thrilling and teamwork was key." - Kaleigh MacBlane
"I thought it was a very good experience. It was really fun and a good teamwork experience. You had to learn how to work together and get along even if you have never met or talked to them before. I made some new friend and had lots of fun." - Allicyn Bisaha
"Attending BOCES was a very fun experience, letting our team showcase our creative prowess. I would highly recommend trying the contest to any students who are interested in engineering." - Tyler Blain
"I got to use my knowledge and my group's knowledge to figure out how to make a chain reaction within two hours and work together to do something really fun. The hardest part to do was the team name and what type of design we wanted to do but besides that it was just minor things like the marble not wanting to cooperate at all." - Samantha Gale
The middle schoolers were not the only SV representatives on the floor at BOCES. Another twelve Sabers attended from our elementary schools.
From Francis P. Donnelly Elementary: Leucas Allen, Ali Husseini, Gabby Killmeier, Madelyn Loupe, Macy Polhamus, and Aiden Ruffo.
From Brookside Elementary: Jocelyn Brusso, Daniel Kalashnik, Ava Kariam, Elizabeth Newby, Luke Reid, and Cooper Spencer.
And one of those teams, Leucas Allen, Jocelyn Brusso, Ava Kariam and Aiden Ruffo, took 2nd place out of 50 teams!
Photos below courtesy of Mr. Rezucha and Sheri Brewer.