BANGOR – Five students from the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone recently won the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Model Car Challenge as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2006 National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C.

The team designed and built a hydrogen-powered car that climbed a 6-foot-long ramp at a record-setting 50-degree angle.

Successfully competing with seven teams of high school students from across the country were: Whitney Bouchard of Fort Kent, David Witmer of Topsham, Scott Morrison of York, Justin Haines of Auburn and Lou Zellinger of Bowdoinham.

Accompanying the students was their coach, Susan Buraceski, a biology teacher at the school. Also traveling with the group were University of Southern Maine faculty members Robert Kuech and Robert Sanford, coordinators of the regional science bowl that the MSSM students won last spring.

This was the first time that any Maine high school has participated in the model car challenge. The National Science Bowl is the nation’s largest science competition and the only one sponsored by a federal agency.