Students were able to hover above the dense canopy of the rainforest, collecting leaves to help save the environment. And to get to the emerald-green treetops of the jungle, they didn't travel any farther than downtown San Jose.

The Tech Museum challenged local students to design a device that would climb above the tree line of the Amazon rainforest to obtain leaf specimens that would help scientists study the effects of global warming and deforestation.

Since flying the 600 participating students to the rainforest to conduct their research was impractical, the Tech Museum set up a simulated jungle vine—actually a 16-foot rope—with a small Ping-Pong ball at the top. The students were told to engineer a device that would retrieve the ball from the top of the "tree line" and get it to ground level within three minutes.

The participants came up with many different ideas to retrieve the ball from above the simulated tree line. Students used rubber bands, motors, batteries and even jumped on two-liter soda bottles to power their devices.

This event, called Tech Challenge 2003 and now in its 16th year, involved teams of young people from schools all over the Bay Area. The challenge was issued in January and involved months of after-school experiments and research. Students had to design a device to retrieve the Ping-Pong ball without dropping it and also had to document their research and results in a scientific journal.

Kris Covarrubias, a representative from the Tech Museum, says the Tech Challenge is one of their biggest events at the museum and is also an extension of the Tech Museum's mission.

"We want to teach kids how technology affects our lives and to help bring up the next generation of innovators. The Tech Museum also wants to inspire them with the possibility of a future in the field of technology," said Covarrubias.

Contestant Kerry Scharfglass of Los Gatos was among the exceptionally inspired participants.

"I want to be an aeronautical engineer when I am older," said the seventh-grader from Rolling Hills Middle School. Scharfglass spends much of his free time flying and building model planes. Scharfglass' team, called the Screaming Eagles, won an award for the fastest device when it climbed the rope and retrieved the Ping-Pong ball in just 18 seconds. His team's device was unique in that it was motorized by a propeller and a rubber band and did not use any batteries, motors or wires.

Each team had an advisor that helped the participants develop their ideas. Larry Grattan was the advisor for the Screaming Eagles and helped them to reach their engineering goals. "We started out with six or seven ideas. Some were totally wild, some fell by the wayside, but we ended up deciding to use a device without electric power, which was risky to set up right," said Grattan, who is also the father of team member Jeffrey Grattan. Other team members included Cooper Townsend, Joey Carolan, Kevin Jani and Mithil Munshi.

Rolling Hills Middle School had three teams that won awards in various categories. Out of 170 teams entered in the competition, there was only one all-girls team, which was called Funky, Chunky, Punky, Hunky Monkey. This team won an award for the best-looking device, which was described as being "streamlined, sleek and small." Debbie An, Phoenix Paz, Stephanie Quiroz and Rebekah Von Schriltz were members of the winning team.

Another Rolling Hills team, This Space For Rent, won an award for their design methodology journal. Making up the team were Jennie Chapell, Laura Mayer, Joe Witte and Bryan Dang.

Sacred Heart School also placed in the competition in the fifth- and sixth-grade division. The school's first-place award was for its design methodology journal, which documented their research and findings. Matt Morales of Saratoga was on this team, which was named the Tropical Crew. A remote control motor powered his team's device, which knocked the Ping-Pong ball into a basket using a PVC pipe. "As we went along, we thought of better ways to design it," said Morales, a sixth-grader at Sacred Heart. "We all worked as a team, and everyone contributed."

Photograph by George Sakkestad The Tropical Crew's project was engineered to use a remote control motor as its power source. Matt Morales of Saratoga works on the device.

The Tech Challenge is made possible through funding from the Intel Endowment and also corporate sponsorships and contributions from private foundations. Seagate, NBC11, SBC and Lockheed Martin are just a few of the many sponsors of the event and of the Tech Museum itself.

The Tech Museum, which has hands-on interactive exhibits, workshops and labs, has been host to almost 3 million visitors from around the world. The Tech Museum showcases Silicon Valley technology and is a joint project with the San Jose Redevelopment Agency.

The Tech Museum has hosted other challenges in the past in order to "get kids thinking about technology and engineering." More than 8,000 youth have been involved with past Tech Challenges, which have involved making devices that inserted a battery pack into a satellite and installing equipment into a crater on Mars.

The Tech Museum plans on hosting some of the best and most unique designs from the Tech Challenge 2003 competition in its exploration gallery within the next couple of months.

But don't worry—no poisonous frogs or man-eating leopards will be included.

The Tech Museum of Innovation is located at 201 S. Market St. in San Jose. For more information, call 408.795.6105 or visit www.thetech.org.