Double, double, toil but no trouble
The Wright brothers persevered for four years to achieve their 1903 Kitty Hawk, N.C., airplane flights.
Addison Trail High School freshmen Victoria Weinell and Magda Naziemiec showed similar determination in preparing for the "Wright Stuff" competition held Saturday at Benedictine University in Lisle.
Friends and classmates since second grade, the girls dominated their division in the regional tournament.
Toiling since late November and making late-night test flights in their high school gym paid off as they managed to keep their 7-gram, rubber band-propelled airplane in the air for 2 minutes and 11 seconds. Their time was better than most of the competition by about 2 minutes.
"This was an amazing day -- a very good day," Naziemiec said as the duo packed up their plane. "This definitely makes the lost sleep worth it."
Hundreds of other students from throughout the suburbs competed Saturday in scientific events including the "Robot Rambler," in which students designed and built robots that then were used to move objects around a game board to score points.
Others launched gliders from helium-filled balloons floating near the rafters of the Rice Center gymnasium to see how long they would glide before touching the ground.
Some of the biggest crowds huddled around the "Scrambler" event. Inventors used energy from a falling weight to propel a self-designed vehicle along a straight track and as close to the end board as possible without breaking the egg taped to the front of the vehicle.
"Everyone wants to see who's going to make the mess," Burr Ridge Middle School student Josh Stull said. "I haven't seen it yet, but I'm waiting."
Top scorers in each of the categories will advance to the state round of the tournament held April 26 at the University of Illinois.