Southern Indiana: October 2025 Highlights
Innovation In Action
Each month, we celebrate the stories of Innovation Accelerator teachers and students making a difference across Indiana and beyond.
Quick Hits:
Silver Creek High School: Students hit the bullseye on their first launch, a feat that hasn't been accomplished since 2017
Crothersville Junior-Senior High School: Six student teams pitch business ideas to local professionals in the Maverick Challenge
Tell City Junior-Senior High School: Students help shape Tell City's future by reimagining the former hospital site
Engineering the Perfect Pumpkin Propulsion
Kate Brown: Silver Creek High School
Who knew that months of preparation and precise calibration could lead to one perfect moment? At Silver Creek High School, Kate Brown's engineering students proved exactly that. Competing in the annual Pumpkin Chunkin contest at Prosser Career Education Center, her team took first place after accomplishing what no one had done since 2017: hitting the bullseye, and on their very first launch no less!
The competition featured ten trebuchets across adult and high school divisions. Five high school teams competed: Silver Creek, Jeffersonville (with two trebuchets), Prosser, and New Albany High School, which fielded an all-girls team. Each team launched three pumpkins weighing between seven and nine pounds, aiming for a 75-yard target.
Silver Creek's success came after nine weeks of intensive preparation. Building on last year's trebuchet, which could launch pumpkins about 45 yards, students aimed to hit Purdue's 75-yard distance goal. After testing and simulations, they discovered the problem: their wooden throwing arm was too heavy, robbing them of the range they needed.
The solution required a critical redesign. Students rebuilt the arm using lighter metal, a transformation made possible by trebuchet expert Ed Carlisle, who volunteered both his engineering expertise and welding skills.
The path to competition day wasn't smooth. During a test launch, the counterweights slipped and damaged the stand, forcing last-minute repairs and additional support. Students came in on a Sunday before the event to test and recalibrate. On competition day itself, they had to reassemble and re-level the trebuchet on a sloped surface as final test of precision.
Their final setup used 320 pounds of counterweight and 8-pound pumpkins, averaging 73 yards per launch. When that first pumpkin hit the target, everyone cheered. Fans, competitors, and the Silver Creek team erupted in celebration. It was a moment quite literally, years in the making.
The team took home two of the competition’s three awards, winning both the bullseye and overall distance categories.
"It was exciting to see so many different designs and strategies," Brown said. "But seeing our students' hard work pay off with that first bullseye—it was just incredible."
Pitching Beyond the Classroom
Jared Kempton: Crothersville Junior-Senior High School
This fall, six student teams from Jared Kempton’s classroom participated in the Maverick Challenge, a Jackson County pitch competition where students present their business concepts to a panel of local professionals for feedback.
"It gives students—even ones that have a business idea they can't put into practice right now—the opportunity for that real-world sort of challenge where they're preparing something that's not for a grade and not for me, the teacher," Kempton said. "They're doing it for something bigger, and that always engages them more."
Students met one-on-one with a panel of three business professionals who asked questions, offered advice, and encouraged them to refine their ideas for the next stage of competition. The range of projects demonstrated both creativity and awareness of real community needs:
A physical therapy app that motivates patients to complete their exercises at home
A women-only handy(wo)man service designed to help single women feel safer when hiring help
A firefighter drone to locate trapped individuals in burning buildings
A clothing upcycle studio that redesigns outdated or worn clothes into new outfits
A fragrance enhancer that makes perfume and cologne last longer
A mobile shower initiative for homeless individuals, potentially supported by a soap-selling fundraiser
Some students left energized by positive feedback, while others were surprised by how much they learned from constructive critique. For Kempton, both outcomes were wins.
"I'm hoping that they don't give up on that enthusiasm," he said. "A lot of students realize that just earning the grade is easier than doing something bigger, but I want them to stick with it and keep chasing the harder, more meaningful work."
Students Help Shape Tell City's Future
Chelsea Kleeman: Tell City Junior-Senior High School
Photos courtesy of the Perry County Development Corporation
Where Tell City's former hospital once stood, there will soon be an empty lot, and Chelsea Kleeman's business management students helped decide what comes next.
The Public Input Session, hosted by the City of Tell City, the Perry County Development Corporation (PCDC), and Purdue Extension, brought together students, business owners, farmers, city officials, and residents to brainstorm ideas for redeveloping the site. With demolition underway and the space under city ownership, the room was full of people huddled around tables, throwing ideas onto brainstorming boards for Tell City's future.
"A huge sector of Perry County demographics belongs to Gen Z," Kleeman said. "There is a huge misconception that 'kids these days' don't want to get involved and don't care. I have found that students do have opinions but don't know how to access channels to have their voices heard. I'm very glad that the PCDC, Perry County Community Foundation, and Purdue Extension allowed our students to have a voice and participate in this session. It created a space where students felt their ideas were respected and valued."
Students contributed ideas for both a five-year plan focused on green space and recreation, and a ten-year plan centered on housing, entertainment, and tourism. Their short-term vision included butterfly gardens, edible forests, ADA-accessible playgrounds, outdoor amphitheaters, glamping sites, and roller-skating rinks. Their long-term concepts pushed even further: affordable tiny home communities with shared amenities, convention centers, solar and wind farms, senior apartments, trampoline parks, and even a brewery.
"Obviously, as their teacher, I was full of pride," Kleeman said. "They were professional, engaged, and excited to be a part of something like this. They worked hand in hand with business leaders, city officials, and community members and were a valuable asset to the session. It made what we were working on in class real!"
By the time the former hospital site becomes reality, these students will be adults, and hopefully living in a community they helped create. Thanks to them, that blank canvas is already filled with bold, thoughtful ideas for what their hometown can become.
