Rolling into STEM: Middle and high school students compete to build the best marble roller coaster at UTC

On Leap Day 2024, local middle and high school students built 30 roller coasters at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Made from paper, tape and foam, the meter-tall coasters weren’t the kind you would find in an amusement park. Teams of more than 150 students constructed the coasters as part of the third annual Marble Roller Coaster competition.

Hosted by the College of Engineering and Computer Science in the University Center Tennessee Room, the competition encouraged students to be creative through the engineering design process, focusing on problem-solving, prototyping, testing and evaluation, said CECS Chief of Staff Sara Jackson.

The judges scored on innovation, aesthetics, the structural ability of the coaster, how fast a marble could travel through it and how many times the marble reached the end. The paper coasters had to be over three feet tall and include a loop and a jump.

Het Patel

Each team had 20 minutes to brainstorm and 90 minutes to complete the challenge.

“We’re at a competition. It’s human nature to be nervous,” said Het Patel, a student at East Hamilton High School.

He shared his team’s strategy: “We’re going to think about this like a tree,” he said. “The tree is the most stable thing in nature.”

Kiya Patel and Madelyn Moffitt, middle school students at Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences (CSAS), attended the competition last year.

They gave advice to their team members.

“Don’t panic and get stressed out and start yelling at each other,” Moffitt said.

In the Middle School category, CSAS took home the first-place trophy. Skyuka Hall won first place in the High School division.

“This competition was created by our college’s students to fill a void of interactive events that was a pandemic legacy,” CECS Interim Dean Ahad Nasab said. “The first two events were focused on welcoming middle and high school students to campus to stimulate interest in both college and STEM. We are now seeing middle and high school teachers building this event into their curriculum, preparing students by reviewing the design process.”

Jocelyn Craven (left) and Kiya Patel

Jackson said that teams from different schools bring their own advantages and disadvantages to the competition. While some high school students take engineering, design or STEM survey classes, some middle school students are exposed to STEM while taking other courses but have not yet concentrated on the design process.

“Fortunately, the engineering design is an iterative process in which students learn by attempting to solve a problem, and this can be applied to all subjects,” she said.

Trey Smith, an instructor at Skyuka Hall and a 2023 participant in the CECS Research Experiences for Teachers program, said Skyuka Hall re-imagines education and steps out of the traditional mold “to offer an environment as unique as our students.”

“By focusing on a process that allows students to take creative risks, fail and try again, fear of failure is replaced with the confidence to observe and optimize,” Smith said.

UTC student organizers of the Marble Roller Coaster competition included junior engineering management and technology major Nathaniel Andrews and Jeremiah Taylor, a civil engineering senior and president of the UTC chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

“We’ve never had this many students register,” said Andrews, a graduate of Stewart County High School in Dover, Tennessee. “The big thing that we’re seeing from last year that’s rolling over is schools, students and groups are understanding what the competition is. They’re coming in with plans premade and ideas in their head ready to go.”

Jackson said having college students organize and host this event makes it unique.

“It is very important to us that our students become well-rounded individuals to better meet the various demands of the Tennessee Valley workforce,” she said. “We are not just educating future engineers and computer scientists. We are creating leaders.”

Support for the event was provided by Dr. Gretchen Potts in Biology, Geology and Environmental Science, Dr. Chris Cox in Mathematics, Dr. Erkan Kaplanoglu in Engineering Management and Technology, UTC Undergraduate Admissions, the CECS Student Ambassadors, the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineering, TVA and Burns & McDonnell.