High school students help the Jayhawk take flight
High school students from around the state try to help the Jayhawk take flight. 6News reporter Lindsey Slater has more from the high-flying competition. Enlarge video
Lawrence High School students, from left, junior Emma Lumpe and seniors Darcy McDonough and Dustin Rist, ready their helium-filled dirigible Tuesday during the 20th annual high school design competition Jayhawks in the Jet Stream at the Kansas University School of Engineering. Students from more than 20 Kansas high schools competed.
High school students from throughout Kansas made some Jayhawks fly on Tuesday.
Or at least they tried.
The 20th annual Jayhawks in the Jet Stream design competition has teenagers come up with flying machines that must carry a keychain-sized stuffed Baby Jay 50 feet. The project is sponsored by Kansas University's School of Engineering.
"I think the biggest thing is they come in thinking, 'Oh, this is an easy, fun project,' but they don't understand the difficulty of it once they get here," said Jamie Hines, a KU senior majoring in electrical engineering.
Some teams flew high, while others, well, crashed.
"We decided to just use some balloons and strap them together and see what we could do," said Jason Simmons, a Baldwin High School junior.
Simmons' teammate, Mason Johnson, said the team had difficulties. "It was way too heavy," he said. "We were the first ones to go, and we didn't do very well at the beginning because we didn't have time to get our balloon together."
About 25 high schools sent one or more teams to compete, but they had some windy obstacles in Eaton Hall.
"A lot of their stuff is going in circles because of the wind," said Hines. "There is a drift current that comes from the stairs and from vents in the walls."
The winner was Burlington High School, which is about 60 miles south of Topeka. Second place went to Liberal High School in southwest Kansas. Third-place winners were from Frederick Remington High School in Whitewater, located about 30 miles northeast of Wichita.
With both the successes and failures, the students learned a valuable engineering lesson.
"A lot of kids seemed like they didn't test it before, which, as an engineer, you learn you've got to go through a lot of tests," Hines said.
Comments
LJWorld.com doesn’t necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post. Read our full policy. Also, read about banned accounts and harassing comments.