Bend, Gilchrist students get busy, make waves

Local high school and junior high students designed and built special projects on Wednesday–using a variety of material to make waves — literally.

It was the second annual Central Oregon Engineering Challenge. This year, Bend High School and Gilchrist Junior/Senior High school students competed at Bend High.

The students were trying their own ideas at simulating a wave pool similar to the whitewater surf park that could be built in Bend as part of the Bend’s Colorado Dam Improvement Project.

“They (the students) are personally invested to see what they can come up with, creating the biggest wave, created the biggest green face for the potential application of surfing,” said Jayson Bowerman, Bend Paddle Trail Alliance member and judge of the competition.

The pre-engineering students have been learning about hydrology for the last month. But now they’re closing the books and getting to the fun.

“When we are able to talk about a river system that goes right through their town, that they are going to have a chance to make a contribution and show professional engineers how they would do it, we had an immediate buy-in from the kids,” said Gilchrist technology teacher Dan Carter.

“I’ve taken a lot of engineering classes at this school,” said Bend High sophomore Steven Brawner. “And I’ve learned the difference: When you design something, vs. when you build it, it makes a big difference.”

The students got stacks of surprise materials, an hour and a half to design and build, and 15 minutes to impress the judges.

Not everything goes according to plan, but some of the waves were pretty big.

And if you want to ride Eric Negrete’s waves, you’d better buckle up for a wild ride

“(The waves were) mostly foam, so it was good for some hardcore waves and stuff — but it wasn’t good for the causal person who just wanted to drift,” Negrete said.

A lively show of imagination and creativity brought to life — and a taste of what could be coming to Bend.

The Bend Paddle Trail Alliance worked with the students on the project, wanting to show them real-life opportunities they could have in the future.

A bond measure including funds for the improvement of the Colorado Avenue Dam passed last fall.

BPTA has raised about half of the $900,000 it needs to fund its share of the whitewater park. They hope it will be completed by 2015.