The final Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School engineering challenge of the school year had science students working on a K-Cup composting challenge.

The goal of the challenge was to create a device out of recycled materials that would extract coffee grounds from as many K-Cups as possible in a one-minute time period. To do this, the device had to include a method to puncture the tinfoil top, remove the grounds, and keep the foil separate from the coffee grounds so they could be added to the school composting bin. Students had 45 minutes to construct a device, and one minute to process as many K-Cups as possible.

Top honors went to the team of Dylan Wallace, Ben Tillman, and Evan Sauter, who processed eight K-Cups in one minute. David Packer and Nathaniel Packer tied for second place. Third place honors went to the team of Curtis Fisher and Savanna Aiello.

Each month this year, science students competed in a broad range of engineering challenges, working in groups to explore the engineering process. Students who placed in any monthly challenge accumulated points over the course of the year. The first place winners for the 2015-2016 engineering challenge are Samantha Hargy, James Kelliher, Casey McAndrews, and Brahmin Thurber-Carbone.

Savanna Aiello and Adam Bilodeau came in second, while Lucas Dutton, Elizabeth O’Brien, and David Webster were third place finishers. Honorable mention went to Zachary Bresnick, Anders Nelson, Benjamin Tillman, and Garrett Zeilinger. Science teacher Natalie Munn worked with teachers Anna Cotton, Dana Munn, Michael Lavers, and Chris Connors to plan the engineering challenges.