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JPL Annual Invention Challenge - 2015

On a pleasant sunny day, the 2015 JPL Invention Challenge was held last Friday on the 180 Mall with more than 250 spectators and participants. This year’s contest objective was to create a device that can launch three balls at a target and achieve the most amount of points.

View event photos

A total of 21 school teams and 2 JPL teams came up with different ways to accomplish this task. The energy sources were varied such as counter-rotating wheels, leaf blowers, surgical tubing, springs, and gravity. The results are shown below for each team.

My congratulations go out to everyone who worked on attempting to solve this challenging problem.

Entry No. JPL/School Name Team Name Device Name Score Award
38 Los Angeles High School IC Fuego IC Fuego 90 + 40 School - 1st
39 Los Angeles High School Diamond Diamond 90 + 20 School - 2nd
12 Lawndale High School MVPCDD Baller 70 + 60 School - 3rd
42 Crescenta Valley High School Falkon’s 70 + 40
25 Temple City High School Amazon The Cannon 60
5 Arcadia High School Absolute Value C 60
61 Alexander Hamilton High School The Utopians 60
43 Oakwood School Oakwood School 50 Heaviest Entry
62 Alexander Hamilton High School The Galaxians The Galaxians 50 Most Artistic
37 Los Angeles High School Bomb Squad Bomb Squad 40
13 Lawndale High School MESA Cardinals Trump 40
10 Culver City High School Team Kato Team Kato 40
77 Summit Collegiate Academy Wonder & Garbonzo Engineering Summit Collegiate Academy 30 Most Creative
46 Morningside High School Trajectory8 Trajectory8 30
64 Oxford Academy Quantum Leap GR8 Overtime 30 Most Unusual
102 Cleary Wong Cleary Wong Happy 18 30 JPL - 1st
75 Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES) LACES Unicorns 20
60 Alexander Hamilton High School Heroes and Zeros Heroes and Zeros 20
30 Sycamore Junior High School BUCCY BUCCY 20
28 STEM Academy of Boyle Heights The Strokes Ballzilla 0
7 Great Oak High School The Identified Flying Objects Murphy’s Law 0
101 Richard Goldstein Goldsteins Bouncing Matilda 0 JPL - 2nd Lightest and Smallest Entry
6 Village Christian High School VCS Engineering #1 Crus8ers 0 Largest Entry
103 Jagmit Sandhu Sandhu Three Stages Withdrew

I wish to thank all of the volunteers (listed below) that put on the show. Without their help, the event would not have been possible. A special thanks goes out to Kim Lievense and her Public Services team, headed by Roni Dash, for collecting the entry forms and video release forms and processing more than 200 student badges for all of the student teams. I also wish to acknowledge the talented work performed by Robert Denise for being the master of ceremonies during the contest.

Name Position
Paul MacNeal Organizer
Alexa Ditonto General Helper
David Breda Assistant to organizer
Lisa Seymour Assistant to organizer
Sherry Stukes Recording Secretary
Natalie Rezek Recording Secretary
Chris Landry Referee
Robert Denise Announcer
Natalie Rezek Badging Helper
Steven Wissler Check-in
Genie Luzwick Check-in
Ronnie Forster Check-in
Lyn Repath-Martos Check-in
Nvart Iskandaryan Safety
Kristine Babaian Safety
Ezra Abrahamy Safety
Nagin Cox Timer
Kristan Ellis Field Judge
Fabien Nicaise Field Judge
Anusha Yarlagadda Ball Retriever
Emily Schneider Ball Retriever
Marcin Witek Ball Retriever
Kristen MacNeal Ball Retriever
Naomi Volain Area Patroller
Andres Andrade Area Patroller
Mieszko Salamon Area Patroller
Bill Badboy Area Patroller
Mary Ellen Derro Area Patroller
Joseph Joe Set - up helper
Kristan Ellis Set - up helper
Kristen MacNeal Set - up helper
Perry Ramsey Set - up helper
Homer Hummel Clean-up helper
Asad Aboobaker Photographer
Chris Hovsepian Photographer
David Tuman Photographer
Qi Chen Videographer
Steve Nelson Judge
Madilynn Weant Judge

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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