Twelve members of the school’s gifted program are currently participating in the Burns and McDonnell Battle of the Brains competition. The competition challenges groups from schools K-12 to propose a new exhibit for Science City every other year.
Students brainstorm and propose ideas, the winning proposal gets built as an exhibit at Science City. Sophomore Ian Weatherman explains the benefits of designing a proposal.
“It’s really nice to try to design something that has the potential of actually being created. If you win, your idea can actually be put out into the world and that’s cool,” Weatherman said.
Any group from the Kansas City metro area can participate. Typically in the De Soto district, Voyagers groups are the ones who compete.
Groups work for months on their proposals, planning starts in August and groups submit final proposals Nov. 9. The finalists are announced Dec. 7.
The last winners’ proposal was just installed in Science City. It was an exhibit about robots designed by Raytown’s gifted program. Other exhibits such as Every Last Drop and Unlock the Code were also designed through Battle of the Brains. Each winning team wins $50,000 in grant money for their proposal. Brown explains the prize.
“They spend like a million dollars writing it and making it [an exhibit], then the school wins a pretty substantial prize to be used for technology.” Brown said.
Students have to follow certain guidelines for their proposals. Including creating six separate elements that would be included in the exhibit accompanied by designs and written descriptions of them.
According to gifted facilitator Michele Brown, Voyagers students are working hard to get their proposals done.
“For the students [it is] a lot of planning and creativity,” Brown said. “We went to Science City and saw the new exhibits from past years.”
Through Battle of the Brains, students are able to design, plan and problem solve in a way that differs from most school projects. Sophomore Grant Kuchynka enjoys getting to work with classmates to create something unique.
“Working with other people, doing something new that could eventually come to fruition if it’s good enough, it’s fun,” Kuchynka said.
