Calgary Science Olympics features students creations

Hundreds of K to 12 students showed off their science chops at the Olympic Oval on Saturday at the 14th annual Science Olympics put on by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).

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"Science Olympics are an inter-school competition where students from all over Calgary participate in engineering andgeoscience-relatedchallenges to find out what it's like to be an engineer orgeoscientist," said Travis Martin, the outreach coordinator forAPEGAand the chair of the event.

There were125 teams of five participating in the event.

"We've got things from building a Rube Goldberg machine at home for some of the younger guys, to coding a level forMariofor the older students," Martin said.

From planes to robots

TylerMacKinnon'steam focused their energy on building a remote-controlled plane.

"It can fly carrying about five pounds of weight and the plane itself weighs about 15 pounds," he said.

His team placed 19 out of 43 at a recent competition in Fort Worth for their machine.

MechaelaGartnerand her team opted for a more lighthearted invention.

"This is a Frisbee-bot. It shootsfrisbees. It was built in 2011 and we kind of refurbished it. We addedunderglowand fun things," she said."It actually tours across Canada to show what we do and what robotics is all about."

Gold medals

And while the event is a competition, Martin says it's not what you might think, withfirst, second and third place winners.

"It doesn't matter if 10 students have gold medal-worthy ideas or only two," he said.

"We want to show [the students]that excellence in innovative thinking, it is stuff that the world needs now."

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