Robert Moses and Center Moriches Middle School Students Take Top Honors at Brookhaven Lab's Maglev Contest

May 2, 2007

Upton, NY - Robert Moses Middle School students took top honors at the annual Maglev Contest held at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, with Center Moriches Middle School students winning a close second-place. The Robert Moses students won seven prizes and Center Moriches students captured six, out of a total of 20.

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Scott Bronson, an educational programs administrator at Brookhaven National Laboratory, helps Noel Smith, a student at Albert G. Prodell Middle School, with testing his Maglev vehicle. Smith won third-place in the scale-model category at the Laboratory's annual Maglev Contest. (Click image to download hi-res version.)

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 the remedy for the soaring cost of gasoline and ever-increasing traffic congestion.

About 200 middle school students from 13 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.

Mineola Middle School students won three prizes in the contest, Longwood Junior High School won two, and East Northport Middle School and Albert G. Prodell Middle School each won one prize. All winning students received trophies.

2007-10627  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom