Center Moriches Students Take Top Honors at Brookhaven Lab's Maglev Contest

April 18, 2008

UPTON, NY — Center Moriches Middle School students were the champions of the annual Maglev Contest held on April 16 at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, earning five out of a total of 21 prizes. Robert Moses Middle School students were the second-place winners with four prizes.

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Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists, now retired, James Powell (left) and Gordon Danby, inventors of Maglev, look over Albert G. Prodell Middle School student Jen Clark's (left) model Maglev vehicle before she tries it out on the track. Accompanying them are her classmates, Jackie Buhler (middle) and Emma Houlihan. (Click on the image to download a high-resolution 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. Danby and Powell were honored guests at the contest, and they were delighted with the students' enthusiasm about Maglev, which might one day be the remedy for soaring gas prices.

Over 200 students from twelve Long Island middle schools entered the contest, in which they were required to design and construct model Maglev vehicles according to engineering specifications in their choice of six categories: electrified track, wind power, gravity, self-propelled, futuristic, and scale-model design. Judging was based on speed, efficiency, and the appearance of the vehicles and the students' written design process.

Albert G. Prodell Middle School, Alfred G. Berner Middle School, East Northport Middle School, Great Neck South Middle School and Mineola Middle School each won two prizes. Longwood Junior High School and Northport Middle School each won one prize. All winning students received trophies.

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