Arcadia HS Students Propel to First Place in NASA Challenge

Pictured above is Team C. – Courtesy photo / Facebook, @ArcadiaUnified

Team C from Arcadia High’s Engineering Design and Development class took first place at the Orange Regional of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Invention Challenge.

This year’s competition required teams to take a PVC pipe, 24 inches in length and 2 inches in diameter, from lying horizontally on two blocks of wood to standing upright on its end on a platform in less than 60 seconds. The device must function with no human input other than an initiating action, such as pulling a pin or pushing a button. The winner is the team who is the quickest at completing the task.

Team C completed the task in 3.1 seconds, while the second place team took more than 6 seconds.
Apaches Anthony Chen, Legolas Chen, Michael Ching, Preston Futaba, Anthony Ge, Jiacheng Hu, Taesung Hwang, Robin Lee, Yuxi Liu and Jefferson Qiu are the first place winners.

Trophies were divided into two categories: JPL employee/family/contractor and school team entries. And trophies were given for first, second and third place for each category in both regional and JPL contests. Additionally, certificates are given for lightest, heaviest, most unusual, most artistic and most creative designs.

This year’s JPL annual invention challenge celebrated its 20^th anniversary with the “Upright Pipe Contest.” The contest was open to all JPL employees, contractors, immediate family and to teams of students from Southern California middle schools and high schools just as long as the students filled out the proper forms. Only the first 90 student team entries were allowed to compete at the regional competitions.

The top five teams with the fastest times from each regional competition will be invited to compete at the JPL contest held on Dec. 14.