3 groups of TAHS students recently took part in a very unique challenge
By Per Peterson
What do you do if you’re hiking in the middle of a remote wilderness, lose your backpack while crossing a rushing river and need clean water and all you have is a lantern?
You improvise.
Just ask any number of Tracy Area High School students, who on April 22 took part in a challenge among hundreds of peers in a competition in Mankato that tested their creativity, and collaboration and presentation skills.
The Reverse Engineering Challenge put three groups of TAHS students — a seventh-grade group, an eighth-grade group and a group of seniors — to a test that made each think outside the box to develop a life-saving water filtration device. The seventh-grade team made up of Makenna Caron, Ismael Reyes, Shelby Johnson, Trenton Johnson and Taylor Squires took first in the Junior Division with the best presentation and solution; the TMB engineering team — Nick Ankrum, Madison Timmerman, Tony Nelson, Madison Clark and Owen Elsen — placed second with the top presentation in the Senior Division; and the school also brought an eighth-grade team to the competition, but that team did not place.
students — a seventh-grade group, an eighth-grade group and a group of seniors — to a test that made each think outside the box to develop a life-saving water filtration device. The seventh-grade team made up of Makenna Caron, Ismael Reyes, Shelby Johnson, Trenton Johnson and Taylor Squires took first in the Junior Division with the best presentation and solution; the TMB engineering team — Nick Ankrum, Madison Timmerman, Tony Nelson, Madison Clark and Owen Elsen — placed second with the top presentation in the Senior Division; and the school also brought an eighth-grade team to the competition, but that team did not place.
“We thought it would be really awesome to take some of our top kids to the event — get them out, doing something a little more challenging,” said TAHS teacher Amy Rubin, who along with colleagues Tammy Purrington and Roger Benson accompanied the three groups of students to Mankato to take part in the new challenge. “I have seventh-grade STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics), so I picked five of the top kids I’ve had throughout the year who I thought would work well together.”
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.