STUDENTS TAKE OFF IN REGIONAL SCIENCE COMPETITION

The rockets parachuted back to earth after the launch and were judged on time aloft.

The device was the creation of Tim Estes and Adrienne Carver, an egg drop team from Arcadia Valley School.

The contraption was actually a small basket, about six-to-eight inches square. A cardboard lid was sliced in strips from the middle. Inside was cotton, beneath some netting.

"It's designed to protect an egged dropped from a high place," said Estes.

"It works," said Carver.

The two sixth-grade students had practiced dropping an egg into the basket for numerous hours over the past two weeks, leading up to the "real thing," at the annual Regional 8 Science Olympiad, held Saturday at Southeast Missouri State University.

The "Naked Egg Drop," was just one of a dozen events which were on the schedule of events in a number of buildings -- McGill, Johnson and Parker -- on the university campus.

The Science Olympiad for Southeast Missouri was the eighth. The first Olympiad was held in January of 1991, and attracted junior high and high school teams from five schools.

The latest Olympiad included almost 200 students from 10 area schools.

In one room in Johnson Hall, high school students were carefully designing, building and testing bridges and/or towers, constructed from light wood pieces, and designed to hold up to 44 pounds.

Loan Hoang, a senior from Sikeston, was familiar in his role as a bridge/tower builder in his engineering feats.

"He's been building these bridges and towers since the seventh grade," said Cliff Lankheit, the Sikeston team coach.

Hoang has been a successful builder. In three appearances at the state level, he has finished third, second and first.

Hoang, said Lankheit, wants to continue his engineering interest at the University Missouri-Rolla.

In another area, students were designing and testing bottle rockets, made from a two-liter plastic soda bottles, utilizing a parachute to test how long they will remain aloft,

In yet another area, student teams were participating in a "Pentathlon," a five-obstacle course, completed in much the same manner of the television program, "Battle of Network Stars." At different points along the physical course, mental obstacles were designed to be met in five science areas.

Another category challenging students included a "Write It/Do It" competition in which students prepared a written description of a design, and other students, in a separate room, attempted to recreate the design, using only the written description.

"There are total of 32 categories statewide," said Barbara Blanton, of Sikeston, a coordinator for the Region 8 Olympiad. "But, we use only 12 of them in our region." Blanton worked with Dr. Sharon Coleman, of the Southeast Missouri State University Chemistry Department and Godwin Center, to coordinate the annual event.

Winners of the Region 8 competition advance to state competition, to be held next month at Columbia.

The two egg events, held in a hallway at McGill, -- "Naked Egg Drop" and "Bungie Egg Drop" drew a crowd Saturday.

Students were required to design and build a cargo crate, on-site, to safely protect an egg dropped from distances of about eight, 12 and 16 feet.

The two sixth-grade Arcadia students -- Estes and Carver -- had tested their egg-catching contraption several days in advance, working with various ideas.

"They must have dropped more than 100 eggs from the 16-foot level," said Dala Carver, mother of Adrienne. Both of Adrienne's parents -- Jim and Dala Carver -- were on hand to watch the egg drop, along with Tim's parents, Paul and Dee Elledge.

Jeri Stuevers and Erin Riefer, who comprised the Dexter team, had a larger target for their egg drop, a 10 x 8 foot box, filled with chicken feed.

But, it was the 10 x 10 foot box designed by Chris Bohannon and Malor Gonzales, the Sikeston team, which emerged the big winner. The winner's box was filled with a "molding foam," about two inches thick. When the eggs landed in the foam, they were immediately engulfed into the foam and protected...

...Except at the 16-foot drop. The egg made a good landing, but cracked.

"I've dropped eggs into the foam from a higher level," said Bohannon. "I don't know what happened."

However, other entries didn't make it past the 12-foot level.

Jason Bandermann and Jeff Rowe, the Woodland High school bungie egg drop team, were well prepared, equipped with a hand-held computer device and elastic cord.

The concept of the bungie egg drop is to drop an egg attached only to an "elastic" cord as close as possible to a target area without breaking.

The Bandermann-Rowe team had devised a plastic egg shell to hold the egg which would be dropped. "A portion of the egg has to be visible," said Bandermann.

From the 16-foot level, the team's egg missed the downstairs concrete floor by less than an inch. Another contestant used a knitted egg holder, but the bungie drop was more than a foot from the floor.