By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
An after school gathering of Whitewater Middle School Slot Car Club members last week bubbled with excitement, engagement and the fun of a “hands-on” activity that requires nothing along the lines of a cellphone, tablet or digital game console.
In describing the experience of slot car racing, Club members offered a variety of words to describe the experience including, “Thrilling,” per Hayleigh Pond) “Awesome. Fun. Teamwork,” Logan Kienbaum said, “Amazing,” so said Grayson Sonntag, it was “exciting,” in the opinion of Elliot Belair and “heart-racing,” according to Autumn Robb.
Perhaps Jimmy Kinson put into words what many members were thinking: “Anything with a motor is awesome!”
The club was recently created by WMS Associate Principal Ben Holzem.
One objective is providing students with an opportunity to apply STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) principles in a very tangible way: Racing cars around a racetrack.
Other goals include working in teams to construct and maintain the race cars and racetrack; trouble shooting and overcoming obstacles encountered in constructing, maintaining, and racing cars; being good stewards of club equipment and resources; and demonstrating a healthy spirit of competition while maintaining a positive sense of camaraderie and sportsmanship.
“This club is drawing in a wide variety of kids, including kids you might not normally think would be into this stuff,” Holzem said.
“The big idea here is to provide kids with different opportunities to explore areas of interest, to find the strengths they might not know they had, and to honor those strengths,” he added.
A slot car is an electric powered miniature automobile that’s guided by a groove or slot in the track on which it runs. Slot cars are typically models of actual automobiles.
Drivers use a hand-held controller to regulate a low-voltage electric motor hidden within the car. The challenge in racing slot cars comes in taking curves and other obstacles as fast as possible without causing the car to lose its grip and spin sideways, or to “de-slot,” leaving the track altogether.
The first commercial slot cars were made by Lionel in 1912.
Slot car racing was a popular fad in the 1960s, with sales reaching $500 million annually, including 3,000 public courses in the United States alone. The fad sputtered out by the start of the 1970s as amateurs felt squeezed out at races.
Holzem’s interest in starting the club includes having slot car tracks that he used as a middle school teacher in talking about electricity.
Add to this is the fun fact that Holzem has been racing since 2009 in Formula Ford, Sports 2000, Super Production (Corvette) and most recently in Vintage Formula Ford and a Lotus that he “pulled out of a barn in Iowa.”
Most of the WMS Slot Car Club’s cars are 1:32 scale models of actual automobiles powered by 12-16 volts, depending on the car, controlled by the driver with a hand-held controller. A couple cars are larger 1:24 scale models.
Holzem shared that one of the students happened to find some 1960s era slot cars in his neighbor’s garbage on the way to school. With the neighbor’s permission, he brought the cars to school and managed to fix cars that had been thrown away as junk.
Stepping up to help outfit the Slot Car Club was a $1,400 donation from HSI Rentals.
Looking to the future, Holzem said the immediate plan is to gather materials – usually in kit forms – for each student to build their own slot cars, in addition to maintaining and modifying the cars we currently have.
“If possible, we would love to compete against other schools with similar programs or see students race their cars in other competitions around the community,” he said.
Holzem said he hopes to coordinate field trips that demonstrate how the “work done in this club can be applied to actual settings with real automotive applications.”
He said he also hopes to bring his own race car to school to walk through with the students how a race car works and how what they’re learning in the club relates to actual racing.
Another goal is to coordinate with Whitewater High School technical education programs as a way of promoting future STEM-related academic and career paths in high school and beyond.
“This makes sense considering that middle school is a time when students are really just starting to explore areas of future interest,” Holzem said. “That, and it is just a lot of fun!”
The current members of the WMS Slot Car Club include:
- 6th grade: Giovany Atunez, Elliot Belair, Christian Dominguez, Logan Duesterbeck, Jimmy Kinson, Anakin Knudsen, Hayleigh Pond, Jesus Ramirez, Lawson Reynolds, Autumn Robb, Josie Selby, and Edgar “Aiden” Urias;
- 7th grade: David Enns, Danny Fuller, Stephen Grabinski, Angela Hudek, Julie Hudek, Logan Kienbaum, Angel Kilar, Colby Long, Jacob Mueller, Jackson Repinski, William Robinson, Grayson Sonntag and Milo Soto.
