Students in grades six through eight are being presented with the opportunity to have their animated display be part of the exhibit at the Choo Choo Barn.

The tourist attraction, located at 226 Gap Road, Strasburg, has announced the first Choo Choo Barn Student Design Challenge.

Students have the chance to see their original, animated display become part of the Choo Choo Barn model train layout and win prizes.

"We can't tell people to reduce their screen time unless we replace it with something else," owner Gary Russell said.

Russell stated that the challenge allows students to showcase their creativity and engineering skills "to explore mechanical design, engineering, and animation principles."

The first-place winner will have his or her animation brought to life by the Choo Choo Barn staff. The project will be permanently added to the display. The top three winners will receive monetary prizes and also receive four complimentary tickets to the Choo Choo Barn.

The deadline to submit entries is Sunday, June 1. Students interested in participating should submit their detailed sketches, mechanical movement plans, and a written explanation of their animation to Rae Vanni at rae@choochoobarn.com.

The animation projects will be judged on creativity and originality, functionality and engineering feasibility, accuracy of scale and clarity of drawings, and quality of explanation.

The Choo Choo Barn Foundation sponsors a five-week school program that introduces students to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

"What we find is when we go and we talk with the kids in school, they are excited to come and see the layout," Russell said. "There have been numerous times when a kid says, 'What can I do to get involved?' We want to encourage the creativity that the kids have."

That was the genesis for the competition. "What we want to do is to grow this into the junior high market, so they can use their ingenuity to come up with different animations to make them more exciting," said Russell. "We want to foster that imagination that the kids have and reward them for that. We are very interested in what people are saying and what they would do to make our layout better."

Russell has already received positive feedback. "It's going over much better than I thought because this is something the kids really like," he said. "Besides the fact there is a prize at the end, I think the money is second nature. I think what really is driving it is they have ability to put their handiwork (on display) and be part of our layout. We're going to put their name on it, so people know it's from them."

The Choo Choo Barn was established in 1961 and features a display where firefighters respond to a house on fire and squirt real water to put out the "blaze." Another animation shows members of the Amish community building a home.

"We are known for our animations, and we basically bring the train layout to life," Russell said. "A lot of people have trains and buildings and things like that. We make them move."

Many of the animations have been in operation since the Choo Choo Barn opened. "We have a very, very long history of the animations, and we're just getting better and better at it," Russell said.

Now junior high students will get the chance to be part of the magic.