Charles City Middle School TAG students win marble run contest

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The kids of the Charles City Middle School’s TAG program rolled their way to victory at a Paper Roller Coaster Design Challenge in Cedar Falls on Friday, Nov. 17.

Ten teams from five schools came together for a friendly competition to build the best coaster they could in the program hosted by Central Rivers AEA.

“They just do a really nice job at creating opportunities for kids to work on something,” said TAG instructor Patrick Nyberg.

The seventh-grade team; featuring Kiki Bruning, Logan Boehmer, Nathaniel McInroy, and Bowie Tobin; and eighth-grade team; featuring Tommy Boss, Elizah Causey, Talan Eckhoff, Akiva Lantz, and Kylie Pickar; went to Cedar Falls to put their paper engineering skills to the test.

Using parts from pre-designed paper kits, the students had three hours to build a towering roller coaster for a marble to roll through. Each coaster was judged on its height, its creativeness, and the run time of the course.

With no outside help from their instructors allowed, understanding engineering and physics was the key to victory as the students had to work together to design and build a structure out of paper and tape that could both stand tall while also making the most out of the marble’s momentum to extend its time on the track.

“At the heart of this, it’s skills that are creative,” said Nyberg. “They’re having to problem solve and work together.”

Their teamwork paid off. The seventh-grade team placed second overall in its division, bringing home awards for having the highest coaster, the most reliable coaster, and the People’s Choice award.

The eighth-graders won first place in their division, receiving awards for having the most variety of elements and achieving the longest marble run.

“Our teams did very well,” said Nyberg. “We had a blast. It was a lot of fun.”

Nyberg said that the whole event was a good experience as the students worked both with each other and other teams, discussing techniques and complimenting design choices of the different coasters.

“It’s a lot of really good, supportive, energy,” said Nyberg.

Coming up for the TAG program, the middle school robotics team will be traveling to Cedar Falls for the AEA qualifier on Dec. 9.