Robert Moses Middle School Students Take Top Honors at Brookhaven Lab's Maglev Contest
May 2, 2005
Winning nine out of 18 prizes, students from Robert Moses Middle School in North Babylon took top honors in the 15th Annual Middle School Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) Contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Brookhaven Lab scientists Gordon Danby and James Powell, now retired, invented Maglev - the suspension, guidance and propulsion of vehicles by magnetic forces - and patented it in 1968. Maglev may one day be a remedy for the high cost of gasoline and traffic congestion.
About 150 students from 11 Long Island school districts participated in the contest, in which they were required to design and construct model Maglev vehicles according to engineering specifications in their choice of one of six categories: electrified track, wind power, gravity, self-propelled, futuristic, and scale-model design. Judging was based on the speed, efficiency, and appearance of the vehicles and the students' written design process.
All first-, second-, and third-place winners are pictured. Robert Moses students took all three prizes in the electrified track category, as well as first prize in gravity, futuristic and scale-model categories. Students from the second-place school - Mineola Middle School - won three prizes, all in the wind-power category. All winning students received trophies.
2005-10314 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
