This year’s 4-H Lego Club’s achievement day took place at the Lighthouse Restaurant at the Grand River Raceway in Elora.
After the club members went inside, none other than June Switzer was right at the entrance announcing which table you were going to sit at. As it turns out, my partner was Liam Henderson from the West Luther club.
Shortly after we all got there, June started the night with the 4-H pledge. Then she introduced us to the judges, Gord Thomson and Grace Thomson and unveiled our challenge for the night.
We had to build a ping-pong ball caper (a machine that could put as many ping-pong balls as possible into a bucket). Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Here’s the catch. We had to go up a ramp that was not straight and had a little spot that was higher than the rest of the board. We could not make it hand powered whatsoever.
After that, we were off and building our machines. We also had an interview with the judges to explain our creation. Here are the results of the night:
Overall winners of the challenge:
Josh Brander and Liam Henderson, gold;
Brandon Bartlett and Mackenna Gorman, silver; and
Emma Gorman and Michael Crha, bronze.
The interview winners were:
Kelsey Lennox and Duncan McLean, gold;
Joel Hill and Max VanVeen, silver; and
Nick McLean and Evan Kaminski, bronze.
Honorable mentions:
Logan McNabb and Mark Knierim
I would like to thank the sponsors for the night including Gord and Grace Thomson and Nasco Spectrum and also the Grand River Agricultural Society for the use of the building. The club was amazing as a result of the hard work of the leaders including June Switzer, Jennifer, Megan and Carol Pollock. I can’t wait until the next club to see what new challenges arise.
submitted by Josh Brander
