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GODFREY - Students from ten area high schools gathered at Lewis and Clark Community College's Riverbend Arena for the 2018 Trebuchet Contest.
Kevin Boddin, a math professor at LCCC, said the purpose of the last 11 years has been to get high school students more interested in STEM academics.
"We're just trying to do a fun activity where they can put into practice the math and science skills they're learning at school and get them more interest in STEM," Boddin said. "It's also a great chance to reach out to those students and present some of the different programs that colleges offer."
Boddin said the students use a lot of math and physics to create their trebuchets.
"As they design they'll deal with counter-weights, gravity and force, things like that from physic, and then they'll do their calculations with math," he said. "It's also an experimental design process where they're testing, adjusting, then testing more and adjusting based on their results."
Students from Southwestern, Bunker Hill, Carrollton, Edwardsville, East Alton Wood River, Father McGivney, Jersey, Collinsville, Incarnate Word Academy and Trinity all participated in Friday's Trebuchet Contest.
"The kids always seem to enjoy it," Boddin said. "We're just trying to show them how science is fun."
