Fort Couch team hits science challenge homerun
June 10, 2024
Fort Couch team hits science challenge homerun
The challenge asked students to "Use your mathematics, modeling, and science skills to predict the time it will take a Washington Wild Things player to run the bases, given that Wild Things infielder Tommy Caufield can run 45 feet in a straight line in 2.31 seconds and 90 feet in a straight line in 4.51 seconds, and that the Wild Things bases are laid out in a square with an edge length of 90 feet."
Jason O’Roark, gifted and accelerated math teacher, served as the students’ adviser.
“In order to complete the challenge, the students timed themselves and some of their friends running those distances and used linear regression to find an equation relating the time it took them to run 90 feet and the time it took them to run the complete base path,” Mr. O’Roark said. “They then used their equation to calculate Tommy Caufield's predicted time. They also did some research on and calculated the total distance of an optimal run around the bases since the path would be curved and not a square. In the end, they settled on a predicted time of 17.43 seconds.”
The Middle School Science Challenge presented two awards – one to the group whose prediction was closest to the measured time, and one to the group that presented the clearest and most comprehensive solution to the problem.
Tony Buccilli, Washington Wild Things, emailed Mr. O’Roark to extend his congratulations to the Fort Couch team.
“Of all the submissions received for the STEM Challenge theirs was selected as the best write-up,” he said.
The Washington Wild Things developed the science challenge in collaboration with faculty from the physics department at Washington & Jefferson College and Washington STEAMworks.
