Rubber Band Contest winners announced

The University of Akron News

06/07/2022

Lily Traxler and Tyler Shirk, this year's winners of the Rubber Band Contest

Lily Traxler and Tyler Shirk, this year's winners of the Rubber Band Contest

Young inventors stretched their imagination for the 14^th Annual Rubber Band Contest! Students in grades 5-8 from around the country learned about the rubber band — one of the many amazing inventions created from a unique class of materials known as polymers.

The contest was hosted by the Akron Global Polymer Academy, the K-12 outreach division of The University of Akron’s School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering. The challenge was to design and create a working invention/artwork that incorporates at least one rubber band. Students applied science, technology, engineering, art and math concepts to the project, and they had the option of submitting to either the Arts & Leisure or Science & Engineering categories.

To enter the contest, students were required to submit a sketch of the invention, an essay, a photograph of the invention/artwork, along with their entry form. Finalists were asked to mail in an actual working copy of their invention/artwork. Final judging was based on creativity, design, effectiveness, essay, and the integration of rubber bands.

“Every year it is so rewarding to see our finalists’ creativity and hard work on-display,” says Jason Miller, contest coordinator and senior multimedia developer/graphic designer. “Our K-12 outreach team is always wowed by the student’s level of critical thinking and imagination as they seek to find new ways to utilize a simple polymer item that we see all the time—the rubber band. The students have very bright futures ahead of them, and perhaps we’ll even see some of them on campus in a few years.”

Winners were notified on May 25. Congratulations to the following students.