Providence Day’s Team Charger 9 won the eCybermission Southeast Regional in April. Ninth-graders Alex Heintze, Matthew Howard and Christian Ortiz each received a $2,000 savings bond and an all-expenses paid trip to the national competition, where they will compete against three other teams in Washington, D.C., the week of June 18. eCybermission is a web-based science, technology, engineering and math competition sponsored by the U.S. Army for students in sixth through ninth grades. It challenges students to propose a solution to a real problem in the community, using science, math and technology.
Team Charger 9 engineered a device that would remove moisture from a standard household refrigerator in order to increase the shelf life of fresh, non-organically grown produce. The students installed their device, which they named Fresh Fruit Longer, into a donated refrigerator and spent many hours gathering humidity, temperature and ripeness data. Two additional teams from the Charlotte school placed in the eCybermission state competition in March. The sixth-grade team finished first in the state and was in the top four of the Southeast region; the seventh-grade team finished second in the state competition.
The sixth-grade team – Alex Constantine, Clare Landis and Harrison Singer – engineered and built a metal detection and recovery system for waste units. The seventh-grade team – Abbie Cochell, Katherine Holway and Haley Ritchie – engineered and built a device that detects whether pets are under a vehicle and alerts the driver and the pet.
