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JPL Annual Invention Challenge - 2007

Play a Song Contest

The tenth annual JPL Invention challenge was held inside von Kármán Auditorium for the first year ever, due to the rain storm that arrived early Friday morning. Twenty school teams and three JPL teams vied for top honors in this year's "Play a Song" Contest. A crowd of over 300 students and JPL employees, friends, and family watched as the teams attempted to get their devices to play the C major scale and their own song.

The objective of this year's contest was to create a device that is capable of performing two tasks. The first task is to replicate a C Major scale. The second task is to play at least the first ten notes of a recognizable song of your choice in proper pitch, tempo, and meter. No electronic speakers or electronically produced or amplified sounds are permitted. Points will be awarded for overall appearance, overall creativity, task 1, and task 2 with a total possible point count of 100 points. The winner of the contest will be the person/team whose device receives the highest number of points.

Entry No. School Name / JPL Leader Team Name Regional Total Score Appearance Points Creativity Points Task 1 Total Points Task 2 Total Points Total Points JPL Finals Award
1 Arcadia High School Senioritys 70 3 10 33 0 46 Loudest
2 Arcadia High School The Veterans 93 8 4 0 0 12
3 Arcadia High School Random Dischord 65 7 10 31 28 76 1st - School
4 Monroe Magnet Middle School F.A.M. 61 2 7 0 0 9
5 Monroe Magnet Middle School FANTASTIC X 72 8 11 0 0 19
6 Costa Mesa High School Drums and Concussion 89 5 7 0 20 32 Largest
9 Crescenta Valley High School Falcons 73 8 7 11 13 39 Smallest
10 Granite Hills High School The Pioneers 33 10 10 0 28 48 Artistic
13 Alhambra High School Kenneth Lu 52 7 5 13 10 35
14 South Pasadena High School SPSC 65 3 9 31 13 56
17 Frazier Mountain High School PP 56 4 9 28 17 58 3rd - School & Creative
18 Culver City High School Team Infinity 37 1 2 0 0 3 Lightest
20 Artesia High School Decibels 66 5 3 0 8 16
21 Artesia High School The Procrastinators 73 3 7 13 0 23
29 Elsinore Middle School The 7 Composers 38 7 8 14 13 42
36 Monroe Magnet Middle School Athena 74 5 7 0 0 12
40 Santa Ana High School Saints 17 2 3 7 5 17
41 La Canada High Schooll (None) 92 6 13 26 27 72 2nd - School & Unusual & Heaviest
45 Manual Arts High School Manual Arts 1 21 7 7 8 8 30
46 Manual Arts High School Manual Arts 2 12 2 11 0 0 13
101 JPL Kristan Ellis 5 4 8 8 25 3rd - JPL
102 JPL Richard Goldstein 2 5 30 26 63 1st - JPL
103 JPL Gary Gary 10 10 22 3 45 2nd - JPL

My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of the teams that worked so hard to get to the finals.

A special thank you goes out to Maggie Porter, Kim Lievense and Kim's team for making the video release process as painless as possible. Because of the weather situation we did not need to worry about the badging as much, but their team was prepared for that aspect of checking-in as well. Additional thanks goes to Randii Wessen for keeping everyone entertained between performances and to Chris Landry for keeping the event moving. Grace Juong, the pianist, did an excellent job of interpreting the sheets of "music" that were given to her and I appreciate all of her and her husband's hard work in getting the keyboard set up and ready to go. The judges (Jo Stoup, Glenn Beardsley, and Dave Taylor) did an outstanding job of making sure that the scoring was fair and impartial.

The volunteers for this year's contest did an outstanding job, as always, and I wish to acknowledge their efforts.

Name Position
Grace Joung Keyboard artist
Paul Woods General Helper
Jamie Piacentine Assistant to organizer
David Breda Assistant to organizer
Chris Landry Starter
Randii Wessen Announcer
Coco Mariano Check-in
Kristen K. Sutherland Check-in
Mircea Badescu Check-in
Amy Tracy Check-in
Melissa Vick Timer
Anthony Lopez Timer
Jean Cheng Timer
Christine Louie Recording Secretary
Fabien Nicaise Field Judge 1
Kirk Breitenbach Field Judge 2
Dan Klein Field Judge 3
Richard Alvidrez Set - up helper
Gregory Pomrehn Set - up helper
Lusine Margaryan Set - up helper
Catherine Moroney Photographer
Keith Novak Photographer
Dave Taylor Judge
Glenn Beardsley Judge
Jo Stoup Judge
Michael Swanson Safety Engineer

Contact Information

Public Services Office

4800 Oak Grove Drive
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mail Stop 126-347
Located in Building 126-336
Pasadena, CA 91109

Paul MacNeal
paul.d.macneal@jpl.nasa.gov
Phone: (818) 354-7824

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