---
title: Making Engineering Make ‘Cents’ to Teens
date: 2023-08-02T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/making-engineering-make-cents-to-teens"
section: Articles
---
# Making Engineering Make ‘Cents’ to Teens

*August 2, 2023* — by [Rebecca Moon Ruark](/author/rebecca-ruark)


> Rising Ninth-Graders Build, Race Carts From Kits Developed by Faculty and Staff and K–12 Teachers

*2 A8 B6080 1920x1080 — Nazareth Hernandez from Duval High School runs his winning cart.*

What teen in an age of CashApp and Apple Pay would bother pocketing a penny from the sidewalk?

But hundreds of local rising ninth-graders learned the lowly currency has plenty of value at an engineering challenge hosted on Thursday by the University of Maryland.

The competition had them build a hand-sized cart from wood, cardstock and a rubber band-powered propeller for forward motion. The goal? Deliver 50 pennies in the cart across a finish line while minimizing “fuel” use. (Each twist of the rubber band stores energy and represents a volume of fuel.) Another twist: Finalists who made it through the first round on the smooth hardwood hauled their precious cargo over a bumpy course with a speed bump—for an added engineering challenge.


*prop carts with students in background — Rising ninth-graders from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in nearby Greenbelt were among the Prince George's County students who built and raced penny-holding carts.*


*professor demonstrates the properties of liquid nitrogen — William Phillips, Distinguished University Professor and 1997 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, demonstrates the properties of liquid nitrogen at last week's finale of the GOAL (Get Out and Learn) Engineering Kit program at Ritchie Coliseum.*




**Topics:** [Campus & Community](https://today.umd.edu/tags/campus-community)


**Tags:** [Academic Competitions](https://today.umd.edu/topic/academic-competitions)


**Units:** [A. James Clark School of Engineering](https://today.umd.edu/topic/james-clark-school-engineering)