Welcome the Middle Level Hit or Myth challenge team from Nashua Catholic Regional Junior High School! Gabriell, Andrew, Katie, Rebecca and Ethan will represent New Hampshire as they compete with teams from around the US and around the World at GLobal FInals!

"The most challenging aspect for us was figuring out how to prove or disprove the doppleganger myth using the scientific method," according to Andrew, 13. "Myths, by their nature, sort of defy physical reality, so trying to apply the laws of physics to them doesn't really make sense. We ended up trying to prove whether one element of the doppleganger myth--the fact that dopplegangers don't cast shadows--could possibly be true. We did some shadow and lighting simulations to find a situation in which an object appears not to cast a shadow and built the results into our skit."

"For us, the most fun and the most rewarding aspect of D.I. is always the Instant Challenge. We've been together as a team since third grade, so we know each other's strengths and how to work off each other. We don't worry that we're not going to be able to figure out the Instant Challenge, we just assume that we will...and we always do," said Rebecca, 14.

And that is how this team got to Globals!

 

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It was a great day in Knoxville for the team from Nashua Catholic!

The secret to Albert Einstein's success is all relative: it's his wife. In this fanciful retelling of the history behind the German scientist's most noteworthy achievement--the theory of relativity--the D.I. team from Nashua Catholic travels back to Germany in 1905, where it is discovered that Einstein's wife is the brains behind his brilliant theories. Tired of not getting any credit for her work, Mrs. Einstein decides to teach her husband a lesson by hiring a doppleganger to make a fool out of him in front of his public. "Doppleganger" is the German word for "double walker," or ghostly double. According to German legend, everyone has a doppleganger, which is supposed to be the personification of one's true spirit. When Einstein is confronted by his pseudo-Doppleganger (for a real doppleganger doesn't cast a shadow), he finally sees the error of his ways, and ultimately gives credit where credit is due.