Whiz Kids: Roosevelt Magnet Students Create Race Tracks

Every week, Patch spotlights young people in the West Bloomfield community who are successful, talented and just plain awesome. We're pleased to introduce this week's Whiz Kids:

Anna Bai, Shannon Osborne, Sara Hobart

• Age: 10, 9 and 9, respectively
• School: Roosevelt Elementary School
• Achievement: Anna and Sara worked together, while Shannon worked alone, on a project which asked that students in the magnet program at Roosevelt to combine essential elements of simple machines, electricity, magnetism, forces and motion, and energy to create their own miniature race track for toy cars. Since the end of March, students had 10 hours of class time to put together these projects, and all three girls were rewarded with A+ grades in each of the six categories they were graded on. Students came together Wednesday in the Roosevelt cafeteria to put their projects on display and invite their parents to see their work.
  
  Shannon’s project was special for its three simple machines, including a wedge, an inclined plane and a pulley, which gave her toy car the energy it needed to traverse the big box that her dad gave her to build the race track on. “I used simple machines as well as kinetic energy and electromagnets to make the car go,” she said. “It’s really fun to be able to make your own Hot Wheels. It can be whatever you wanted it to be, and that’s fun.”
  
  In working together, Anna and Sara were required to feature four simple machines, which they took advantage of to include a wheel and axle at the bottom of their race track to give it the look of a box car racer. “From behind, it looks like a race car, but from the front, it’s our project,” said Anna.
  
  Their project also included a book, which provided explanations of how their race car got around the track they had built for it. “You know how every race track has a pit stop? Well, if you want to take a break from looking at the projects, you can read our book,” Sara said.
• Key to awesomeness: All three girls seemed to maintain a natural curiosity about science and life. “She wants to know how things work,” Sean Osborne said as he watched his daughter guide a classmate through her project. “She has really good ideas that she might need help to follow through with, but she really knows how to work hard, accomplish a goal and stick to it.”
  
  Esther Bai had a similar opinion of her own daughter. “She likes a wide variety of subjects,” she said. “She has a natural curiosity, and we encourage her to find out about what she’s interested in. All the ideas were there. They had help with power tools, but they put the project plan together, budgeted their time and worked on it in class.”

Do you know a special young person in the community who deserves a round of applause because he volunteers instead of playing video games after school? Or maybe your daughter's science club is trying to challenge the way we think about the energy crisis? Or maybe your son's lacrosse team won its first game in three years? Everyone deserves a little attention, and we want to tell these stories.

So email your Whiz Kid nominations to Editor Tim Rath at Tim.Rath@Patch.com. Please include the name, age, school, achievement and key to awesomeness, as well as a photo. Then come back every Wednesday for our Whiz Kid spotlight; you never know who will be up next.