This year’s Fall Fest, which is a tradition within the school district, took place throughout the school day on Nov. 2 and 3rd. High school physics club students, and 6th graders at Freedom, look forward to Fall Fest each year. Fall Fest is an exciting activity that teaches middle schoolers a little bit about physics while enjoying a number of different activities. 

“Science is often thought of as being boring. When younger students recognize that their older peers find joy in such engagement, it can be transformative,” physics club sponsor, Dr. Brian Wargo said. 

During the first day of Fall Fest, 6th grade students built pumpkin cars that would race the other cars down a hill. They used a variety of tools, with the help of high school physics club students, to place their tires onto their pumpkins with rods, nuts and bolts. The students were also allowed to decorate and name their cars for the race. 

While some students were working on their pumpkin cars, others were using the gym to launch rubber weights on a trebuchet. This taught the students how to experiment and record their results. They used mean, median, mode and range to find the average distance that the weights traveled across the gym floor. High school students helped them set up and adjust their trebuchets so that they could launch further and accurately. 

“I enjoy Fall Fest because I get the opportunity to leave an impression on these kids,” senior physics club president, Logan Bickerstaff, said. “Fall Fest was something that I remembered doing in 6th grade, so when I got to high school and had the chance to help out and educate these kids, I couldn’t pass it up.”

The second day of Fall Fest was when the pumpkin cars were put to the test. Using a ramp that was put together by physics club students, the cars were raced. The students were extremely excited to find out who the winners would be. To the shock of everyone; however, the physics club students’ “Wargo Pumpkin” won the race against all of the middle schoolers’ cars. 

“Every year in physics club, someone makes a Wargo pumpkin. I did not expect it to win because the Wargo pumpkin never wins, so it was definitely a surprise when it won two rounds in a row!” physics club senior, Lilly Burgess said. 

Burgess spent a lot of her time during Fall Fest creating this pumpkin, along with a few other members of physics club. They picked a smaller pumpkin and placed the wheels where they believed would be the best fit to allow the pumpkin to go faster than the rest. They finished their pumpkin off by adding a beard and a hat to imitate Wargo’s signature appearance.

Fall Fest is a successful activity and learning experience for students every single year. Whether they are big or small, the students learn new things from each other.