Symposium turns SHS into science lab

Science and its myriad mysteries were vividly displayed Saturday at the inaugural Sisters Science Symposium held in the Sisters High School commons. A collage of exhibits and demonstrations by students, private individuals and local businesses provided an arena to tantalize and test the curious. 

Scientific marvels delighted the eye and mind in multiple areas of interest from rocketry, ionic bonds, organic farming, and worm composting to the wonders of 3-D printing.

All around the commons area, friends and family roamed the many experimental stations, stirring beakers, peering into microscopes and poking sugar crystals with keen interest.

Nate Wren, 12, and his fellow seventh- and eighth-graders from the Project Science class hovered around a shallow rectangular pool plugging 9-volt batteries into toy vehicles and launching them into the water.

"We were given 20 popsicle sticks and supposed to build an amphibious vehicle," said Wren. "It was fun to test them because there were some pretty amazing crashes."

Across the aisle, the Sisters Elementary School Garden Club set up a messy worm composting station, explaining the process and benefits of composting.

Shannon Pollard is a parent volunteer who helped start the gardening program nearly 10 years ago.

"These are red wiggler worms that particularly like kitchen scraps," she said. "We feed them in these plastic bins and they end up excreting a nutrient-rich compost. It's like adding vitamins to the soil. The kids have a lot of fun with it and really love the worms."

In the gymnasium, 20 teams signed up for the Design Construct Compete (DCC) event, where participants had to build a device from plastic, wood or steel capable of propelling a tennis ball across the room and into a horizontal hoop.

"We have teams using a trebuchet, using a counter balance, one using pneumatics, another utilizing compressed air and crossbow variants using elastics," said physics teacher Rob Corrigan. "It's a challenging engineering feat because you have to control three degrees of freedom - azimuth, elevation and force."

Corrigan was happy with the huge turnout and obvious enthusiasm of the crowd.

"We've got kids out there from the middle school up through the most advanced high school science classes. You can feel the energy out there. This is our first year doing this and our biggest event so far. As a teacher it's kinda nice to have a crescendo to the year."

Team Mambo - Nicky Blumm and Jardon Weems - won the competition and the $300 first-place award. There was an intense battle for second and third place, which came down to a "measure-off." (See "Sisters salutes," page 25 for more details.)

Rod Moorehead of Bend Oregon Rocketry Group brought a small arsenal of colorful model rockets of all sizes.

"About half the people new to the hobby are born-again rocketeers who did it as a child," he said. "It's a good hands-on hobby where you get to build your own rocket and then go out and fly it. We do our kids classes at the Sunriver Nature Center during summer and spring breaks. The fifth-graders here in Sisters who do the rocketry course every year have a ball."

Bob Collins, president of the Sisters Science Club, remarked on the incredible support offered by the volunteers and sponsors who made the event possible with their time, patience and organization.

"It's been gratifying the whole year," he said. "It's easy when all I have to do is sit down and have a cup of coffee with somebody and they say 'yes.' It's a whole community effort and I thank everyone."

Paul Mott, of Portland's Peak Solutions, volunteered to be part of the exposition and showcased an incredible 3-D printer capable of rendering a physical model for CAD systems.

"It's an additive process and creates each prototype layer by layer using a plaster-based material," he said. "It starts on the bottom and builds upwards. It's useful to architects, engineers and designers in multiple fields. This technology is used by corporations like Nike, Boeing and Intel, even the computer gaming world. People here today have been very interested. They're amazed and can't believe you can create something like this out of a printer in full color."

The symposium came to a close with keynote speaker Dr. Beverly Torok-Storb delivering a talk on advancements in stem cell research and her focus identifying specific signals controlling cellular development in bone marrow transplants.

"This whole thing has been hallucinatory," Collins said with a grin, readying his camera for the start of the DCC event. "All the faces floating around, kids of all ages, everything from earthworms to optics. Sisters will never be the same. It's a great launching event for an annual science symposium that will harvest exhibits for permanent display for teachers to continue to use in the future."