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

March 26, 2010

UPTON, NY — Center Moriches Middle School students won six awards out of 21 at the annual Middle School Maglev Contest held at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven Lab on March 24. Students from the Albert G. Prodell Middle School in Shoreham, East Northport Middle School, and Great Neck South Middle School each won three awards.

The first-place winners in Brookhaven Labs 2010 Middle School Maglev Contest enlarge

With maglev inventors James Powell (seated, left) and Gordon Danby (seated, right) are the first-place winners in Brookhaven Labs 2010 Middle School Maglev Contest: (from left): Brian Fremgen, Center Moriches Middle School; Sean Finnegan, also from Center Moriches; Craig Stern, Longwood Junior High School; Tyler Scholl, Albert G. Prodell Middle School; Danny Kiernan, Great Neck South Middle School; Leah Neiman and Kelli DiTomasso, Port Jefferson Middle School; and Louis Navas, Center Moriches Middle School.

Gordon Danby and James Powell, retired Brookhaven Lab scientists who invented and patented maglev – the suspension, guidance, and propulsion of vehicles by magnetic forces – were honored guests at the contest, and said they were delighted by the students’ creativity in designing their model maglev vehicles. The inventors told the students that one day – perhaps as soon as five years from now – they may be able to use maglev transportation on Long Island.

More than 200 students from 15 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 seven categories: electrified track, wind power, gravity, self-propelled balloon, self-propelled other, futuristic, and scale-model design. Judging was based on speed, efficiency, the appearance of the vehicles, and the students’ written design process.

Mineola Middle School and Longwood Junior High School students each won two awards, and Port Jefferson and Robert Moses middle schools each won one prize.

2010-11105  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom