My littlest sister (the one with a strawberry blond ponytail) stomped all the competition and led her Charter School to first place at a Engineering Expo held at the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus. The team designed and built a roller coaster made with poster board, chopsticks and popsicle sticks, with a marble that served as the "rider." The Kihei team designed this roller coaster with eight spirals that went into one hill and then dropped into a cup.

The project description was given out one week before competition, but the materials were not made available until right before the build out, which lasted approximately 40 minutes. In those 40 minutes they were judged on team participation, functionality, design and originality, and points were given on the final run to designs that featured loops, turns, hills and jumps.

Similar engineering projects that would be fun:

* Using string, eggs, ten rubber bands, uncooked spaghetti, straws, and tape make a vehicle that will protect your egg from cracking. To test out your vehicle, attach it to a straw. Carefully thread the string through the straw. Attach the string at an angle between two walls with tape. Let the vehicle go. Is your egg whole?

*You can use two aluminum pie pans, two plastic sandwich bags, and one meter of tape to build a boat. Load your boat with raw eggs. How many eggs could it hold before sinking? Is it very stable? What changes would you make?

*Use two cups, string, scissors, tape, a broomstick, a table, and up to fifty pennies to create something that will allow you to lift a tennis ball 50 centimeters into the air without using your hands. Did your invention do the job? Why do you think it worked or didn't work? Experiment with other types of balls and different coins.

*Can you find a way to get a super ball to go from one table to another and then back to the first table? You can only use 10 sheets of paper, 10 paper clips, 10 rubber bands, 20 feet of string, some masking tape, and a ruler. You can't use your hands. Set the two tables so they are three meters apart.

*Try to make a maze for a marble to go down s-l-o-w-l-y. Which materials worked best to slow down your marble? Does the distance the marble travels affect how long it takes to finish the maze?

* One last project that would be perfect for any other young Scuba divers out there - using styrofoam peanuts, 12 inches of string, some washers or pennies, and a large see-through container filled with water, make an object that doesn't float on the top of the water or sink to the bottom. What happens if you change the shape of your peanut? Can you add more pennies or washers?

With that, Marianna and I are off to practice bouyancy in the pool today. Rather than styrofoam peanuts and pennies we will be using neoprene wetsuits, shot-filled bean bags, and BC's (bouyancy control devices). Will we hang our tanks up on the lane markers? Will we crawl along the bottom? What will happen if we are horizontal? Vertical?

There's nothing quite like a good science experiment early in the morning!