The Mars STEAM Building Buzzed with Competition at 15th Annual STEAM Challenge

Designed for middle and high school students, the competition saw 112 girls from 20 schools in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC, spend the day using their STEAM knowledge, deductive reasoning skills, and common sense to solve challenges revolving around this year’s “Girl Energy” theme. 

Foxcroft’s Vibrant Volts (Katharina E. ’27, Samantha O. ’27, and Cam F. ’27) team received a robot kit and unique medals designed and fabricated by Foxcroft STEAM students and faculty using the laser cutter in The Innovation Lab as their first-place prize in the high school division. Second place went to Foxcroft’s Kinetic Krew (Sammie M. ’27, Cate H. ’28, and Katt G. ’27). Foxcroft’s Shore Thing (Anais P. ’26, Naia S. ’28, Olivia M. ’27, and Sam S.D.L. ’27) took third.

Immanuel Christian School’s Forces of Nature took home the top trophy in the middle school division, and their Kinetic Krew team took second. North Cross School’s Sensational Suns placed third.

Energy and enthusiasm filled Foxcroft’s newly opened Mars STEAM Building as the teams worked through five unique challenges. 

On the main floor of the Mars STEAM Building, in the Biology Lab, students worked through the “Building Girl Energy” challenge (created and hosted by sponsors Hord Coplan Macht and Coakley & Williams Construction). Teams used the provided materials to build and then test catapults to see which team’s design could launch the same object the farthest. In the Chemistry Lab’s “Lights Out” challenge, participants used binary code to recreate a series of logos using the least amount of energy. 

Three events were hosted on the second floor of the Mars STEAM Building. For the “Rolling Stones” challenge in the Large and Small STEAM Classrooms, teams determined how much energy it takes athletes to "sweep" the competition in curling, and made nutritional decisions to fuel those needs. In the Finishing Shop, the “FANtastic Sculptures” challenge asked groups to construct a sculpture that has both kinetic and audio components using only the materials provided. The sculptures were then tested using a fan and scored on creativity, craftsmanship, stability, movement, and sound. The fifth event was hosted in the Backstage area. The “Girl Power” event asked participants to complete an obstacle course and then calculate the energy used for each obstacle. Those within 10% of the correct answer move to the next obstacle. The team that completed all obstacles in the least amount of time won. 

The Hord Coplan Macht and Coakley & Williams Construction female engineers and architectural designers not only administered one of the challenges but also shared their experiences and answered questions from the young competitors during a panel titled “Energy of Construction.”

During breaks, students answered trivia questions and earned raffle tickets for prizes ranging from Owala water bottles to tech devices.

View the complete list of winners.