LCHS Students Are First at The Invention Challenge

This was the third time La Cañada High sophomores Tomas Kanholm, Grant Scoller, Chris Omae, Douglas Chen and Alex Kanholm entered the Invention Challenge at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and their third time they brought home the first place trophy.

“It is very exciting to know these kids did this,” said LCHS Principal Damon Dragos. Although the students had strong support from their parents it really was the kids who did the work, he added.

The contest was established nine years ago as a challenging yet friendly competition open to students from middle and high schools, JPL employees and contractors and their family members. There is a different engineering challenge every year. This year participants were told to create a mechanical devise that would launch 20 tennis balls into a metal trash can located five meters (a little over five yards) away from their device in less than a minute. To add to the challenge, the device had to be capable of using 20 tennis balls of varying age, mass and appearance and it had to be started through a single operation such as cutting a string or flipping a switch.

Six JPL teams and 27 middle and high school teams from all over Southern California competed. The LCHS students began working on their project in September and worked for about six hours every Sunday afternoon.

“We took a long time working on the design,” Chen said.

“We worked in my garage,” Kanholm said. “My dad likes to build things so we had a lot of stuff in our garage. We used a lot of what we had.”

The 500-pound mechanism, dubbed “A Momentary Lapse Of Reason,” was made of 20 metal arms that were held in place by springs. The balls were placed in cups that, when released, catapulted the balls through the air and into the metal can. The team achieved 17 metal can baskets in a little over six seconds.

“They even beat the JPL teams,” Dragos said.

“They are already evaluating what happened, during the trials they always got all twenty in,” said Chen’s mother, Jacqueline Chen.

The LCHS teams not only got more of the tennis balls in the can than any other team, but did it in less time.

They came into the competition as the team to beat but the team members were gracious winners. Before the match began they spoke to other teams and were curious and complimentary on others’ designs. Dragos was proud of the way they represented the school.

“They dealt with the other teams so well. They were supportive to the middle and high school teams. To me, that in itsself is impressive,” Dragos said.

The team members were happy about their win and proud of what they had accomplished but now thoughts go to other academics.

“We all do so much,” Tomas Kanholm said.

Most of the students are in advanced placement classes and sports. They agree they will enter the Invention Challenge again next year.