CAMDEN – For the second year in a row, the Camden Rockport Middle School held its eighth grade sculpture race. Students designed, built and then raced their sculptures uphill on Knowlton Street in front of the school. All the designs were constructed out of recycled materials.

CRMS art teacher Kristen Anderson said it's a hands-on learning experience.

"It's a team effort," she said. "Myself, the eighth grade, Youth Arts and the math and science departments here at the school. We all collaborated to create this project based learning experience for the kids as they sail on to high school."

Anderson said they learn to break things apart and rebuild it.

"We turn my room into a construction room or a makers space," she said. "There are failures but also a lot of happy moments. It's all levels of achievements.  Kids don’t always get the chance to work together like they do with this sculpture race. It's really a cool thing to watch them go through the creative process."

The race is the culminating performance. There were 24 teams consisting of four to five students. The heats were ran with two teams at a time, but all teams were vying for the best time crossing the finish line.

Students also voted for the Best of Show.

Kim Bernard, visiting artist for Youth Arts, said this is the end of four weeks of work.

"It started with a presentation on what a sculpture race is," she said. "We brainstormed ideas and they broke off into teams. And they collected recycled materials to create these kinetic contraptions."

Winners were:

Design - Rub a dub dub

Speed - Bass Drop

Collaboration - Explore France

Ingenuity - Patty Wagon

Student Choice- Jurassic Terror

Enjoy the gallery and witness the thrill of racing. The Indy and Daytona 500 in all their glory, could never be arrayed like one of these.