On Saturday, Jan. 11, school-age kids and parents from North Alabama gathered in the Engineering Building at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) for the first-ever Project Candy Land competition. The goal? To build a 3-D structure made out of 100% edible candy materials using the principles of science and engineering. The contest was conceptualized and planned by two area students, Anish and Niam Abeysiriwardena, with Dr. Krishnan Chittur, professor of chemical and materials engineering at UAH, serving as the event's faculty advisor. Ultimately, 18 aspiring young engineers rose to the challenge, presenting their creations to a panel of judges, who awarded points for stability, creativity, detail, density, and presentation. Among them were six seniors from UAH's Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering (Bryan Call, Alaine Dempsey, Ragan Haymon, Vivian Nguyen, Jonathon Savoy, and Jennifer Thomas), four professional engineers from General Electric (David Pepper, OrbinDempsey, John Kent, and Dot Hall), and chemical engineer and Huntsville newcomer Solveig Irvine.