By Sheena Williams
Killeen Daily Herald

HARKER HEIGHTS – As Team Chevy's race car sidled up to the starting line, its young designers waited in anticipation and then watched their roadster speed down the tiled hallways of Union Grove Middle School on Friday.

The red-and-blue-streaked miniature car came to a stop just shy of the 5-meter line. Twelve-year-old Chevy Crocker came up with a "crazy idea" for the car. Crazy or not, fellow 12-year-old teammate Johnathon Shuker listened as Chevy gave a brief explanation while unsnapping the racer's sole transporting force – a mousetrap.

The last-minute alteration gained the team an additional meter, which generated applause and a couple of high-fives.

Team Chevy, along with several other teams from the school's sixth-grade classes, was given an idea, supplies and some helpful tips to practice and learn about force in motion.

"We were trying to look for an idea to teach force in motion in a fun way," said Connie Cox, a sixth-grade science teacher at the school. "This takes a lot of skill and work for these kids to think up because they have to consider friction and even the diameter of their wheels. So this project has given them a lot of variables that they can change."

Team Chevy's souped-up model had back wheels made from computer games. Chevy said they were easy to part with in the name of science because they were "boring."

Poker chips kept the ride stable, but the roadster failed the speed competition. The distance race was a different story; the mousetrap, the length of an attached stick and a lot of string helped secure the team a win in that category.

"We tried to use balloons on the end, but it didn't work," Johnathon said with a grin. "We blew them up, and the air would come out, but we didn't have enough pressure."

"We put them right here," Chevy said, pointing to the back of the model. "But they were in the way of the mousetrap so I came up with the idea of having the balloons on top, but they were still getting in the way of the CDs and the mousetrap."

Each sixth-grade class declared a winner in distance and one in speed on Friday. Those teams will compete in a championship race-off on Monday. Winners of that race will earn trophies and bragging rights until next year's science showdown.

Contact Sheena Williams at sheenaw@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7553.

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