More than 1,500 people attended the fifth annual Potter Cup on Jan. 25 at Haverford High School. The competition benefits Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer, the Wynnewood nonprofit group.

Students and teachers participated in a pep rally before watching contests between the wrestling teams and boys' and girls' basketball teams. Haverford won all three contests to take home the Potter Cup. The event also included a magic performance, food, games, and prizes for children.

In a show of solidarity with cancer patients, around 50 Paxon Hollow students, including one girl, shaved their heads on Jan. 24.

Since its inception, the Potter Cup has raised more than $115,000 for Alex's Lemonade Stand.

Seventh and eighth graders from 26 area middle schools designed and built their own utopias as part of the Pennsylvania-Philadelphia Regional Future City Competition, held Jan. 26 at Villanova University's Jake Nevin Field House.

Students from Tredyffrin-Easttown in Berwyn, Great Valley in Malvern, and Radnor participated in the contest, organized by the Delaware Valley Engineers Week Council.

The teams used large, colorful models to display their cities. They also focused on preventing disasters, using as examples a small Kansas town destroyed last year by a tornado, and Linfen, China, one of the world's most polluted cities.

Around 30,000 students from more than 1,100 schools in 40 regions are participating in this year's Future City Competition. The nationwide contest started in 1993, to motivate interest in math, science and engineering.

At Villanova, Our Lady Help of Christians in Abington took the top prize and the right to compete in Washington for the National Finals, from Feb. 18 to 20 during Engineers Week. All participating schools received individual awards from sponsoring companies.

Shipley Middle School's robotics team, the GatorBots, recently placed in the top eight out of 34 competitors at the Philadelphia FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League Power Puzzle Tournament.

The GatorBots scored 295 points, an all-time high for the team, at the Jan. 26 contest in the University of Pennsylvania's Irvine Auditorium.

The students from the Bryn Mawr school were Mark Broderick of Wayne, Emily Hornbeck of Bryn Mawr, Sam Labess of Paoli, John Lennon of Broomall, Derrick McMichael Jr. of Douglassville, Grey Nagle of Wayne, and Cameron Wylie of Haverford.

Gary White of Bryn Mawr and Derrick McMichael Sr. of Douglassville coached the squad.

The Lower Merion Library System has begun offering a computer loaded with 34 software programs designed to make learning fun in the children's department at each of its six member libraries.

Each Early Literacy Station is available for children ages 3 to 9, and the software promotes reading, science, art and math skills. 

In the programs, Trudy the Alligator teaches geography, a friendly skeleton explains anatomy, and children travel back in time to rescue a missing professor. Each unit also features an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a calculator and phonics exercises.

The systems are in place in the children's rooms at the Ardmore, Bala Cynwyd, Belmont Hills, Gladwyne, Ludington and Penn Wynne libraries.

- Ed Mahon