Five local kids from the Athens Boys and Girls Club won the 2024 Cal Ripken Foundation STEM Challenge in Baltimore, Maryland, May 22.
Adrian Harris, Eleanor Dunnavant, Jamie Rivera, Khloe Fairbanks and Skylee Drawbaugh were the young innovators who took on the national challenge — utilizing the critical thinking skills they learned in the classroom to win the prestigious honor.
“I knew we were capable of doing it, so it wasn’t that surprising to me when we won,” 11-year-old Eleanor Dunnavant said. “We worked on this project for six months, and I had to cancel some of my piano lessons to work on it, so I’m definitely glad we won.”
For this year’s STEM competition, the group was tasked with designing a functional family-friendly amusement park ride. The design of the ride had to incorporate some kind of motion that was created by a simple machine that the group had to build.
“Physically making it wasn’t even the hardest part,” Dunnavant said. “I would say making a video to advertise our ride was probably the most challenging part.”
“Into the Deep” was the name of the innovative winning design the group came up with, and the ride was centered around an educational underwater exploration experience. The group was able to incorporate rotary and oscillating motions in their design, which they created using inclined planes and a pulley system.
“I already knew we were going to win because of how good our design was,” 11-year-old Adrian Harris said. “Advancing through each round of the process made me more confident, so when we got to Baltimore I knew we won.”
The challenge involved several rounds of submissions to weed through all the designs from around the nation, culminating in the final three groups presenting their final design prototype in person in Baltimore.
“It was really fun, they paid for our flight and transportation, so we stayed in a really nice hotel,” Dunnavant said. “We got to do a food tour around historic Baltimore, and we got to go to Topgolf so that was my favorite thing.”
As the winners of the 2024 Cal Ripken Foundation STEM Challenge, the group was awarded a $5,000 cash prize along with signed sports memorabilia. The Athens Boys and Girls Club also received a congratulatory plaque that commemorated their win.
“We stayed late a lot of times to work on the project, and we couldn’t have done that without our parents and teachers helping us,” Dunnavant said. “I was more happy we won for them, because for me the win was more about them than us.”