Students’ Science Projects and Creativity Run With the Sun

It’s not every day you race a high-speed sports car against a model named after a sitcom actor or a vehicle that smiles.

But all three cars came to life this week at Sierra Canyon Middle School in Chatsworth because of the creativity of some science-minded eighth-graders who had a little help from the sun.

Teams of two or three students built 21 solar-powered model cars as part of their end-of-the-year science projects. They raced the vehicles on Tuesday, but that wasn’t the important part, students said.

They’re hoping car manufacturers will catch on to the idea of solar-powered vehicles to help keep the air clean.

“Gasoline and coal--they’re really going to screw up the environment,” said Matt Akana, 14, of Granada Hills. “Sun is plentiful and cheap.”

But while they learned about solar energy, the children admitted they had fun.

The first-place team, S.S.S. Smile, wore shirts with hand-painted grins and sang a jingle for added team spirit.

The fourth-place team, the Speeding Costanzas, wore shirts with magazine cutouts of Jason Alexander’s neurotic character, George Costanza, on NBC-TV’s “Seinfeld.”

The cars took two months to build, said Robbie Revel, an eighth-grade science teacher.

The school provided many of the materials needed to build the cars, including the solar panels.

The cars were each about 60 centimeters long and most were wedge-shaped to travel faster, Revel said.