On Friday, Oct. 2, the physics students at Nashua Christian Academy raced their custom-made soapbox cars down the curved pathway of the Nashua Riverwalk with fellow high school students watching on in suspense.

It was quite an exciting day behind the Greeley House where the race began; teachers, parents and residential pets showed up to see the race.

It was a time "to get a hands-on experience of velocity, acceleration and vectors," said physics teacher Mike Niemaszyk. The first box to race was built by Niemaszyk and partner and teacher Micah Groder. Out of all the cars, theirs was the one that traveled the furthest.

The three other cars that competed in this race included two created by students in the NCA physics class and the third by a sophomore guest student.

The physics students experienced some initial difficulties with placing some finishing touches on their vehicles right up until the moments before the race began.

The sophomore guest, Jared Brown, did the best of all the students during the race that day, and he built his car from start to finish within a span of two days.

The physics students put extensive effort into their cars but failed to move more than 40 feet. Various problems occurred, but the primary issues were with the wheels.

"Test-driving your car is always a good thing," physics student Hannah Keldsen said in retrospect.

This race day experience taught the physics students the importance of teamwork and time management, and how they could learn from their mistakes and eventually succeed.

In the wake of this exciting event, thoughts of future plans to improve their cars and bring them to optimum performance met the students almost immediately.

The students will be working on their cars throughout the winter for this coming spring, when a second Soap-Box Derby may take place. It will be exciting to see what new plans and ideas they come up with.

Greg Gdanian and Josh Hartling are juniors at Nashua Christian Academy.