Water bottle rocket

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA

Staff Report

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – Broward County Public Schools congratulates all of the students who participated in the annual Broward SECME-STEM Olympiad, which took place recently at Blanche Ely High School. The following schools were the overall first place winners for each level:

• Elementary School – Floranada Elementary School • Middle School – Apollo Middle School • High School – Western High School Approximately 1,000 students put their science, technology, engineering and math skills to the test in the daylong SECME-STEM Olympiad.

Events included racing specially built race cars made out of mousetraps, launching water bottle rockets high into the sky and “load testing” custom made wooden bridges.

Students also participated in bionic/robotic hand events, VEX robotic games, generator building events with FPL, team challenges sponsored by the Florida Panthers, an App Challenge sponsored by Magic Leap, poster contests and essay competitions.

In addition to being the overall middle school SECME-STEM Olympiad champion, Apollo Middle School won first place in the mousetrap race car competition. The school’s mousetrap race team will now travel to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for the national SECME competition this summer.

The District’s SECME-STEM Olympiad prize patrol traveled to each of the overall school winners to present them with their championship trophies!