It has been said that nothing ventured, nothing earned.
And, the young minds of Landstown High School’s Governor’s STEM and Technology Academy certainly proved that this year.
For the first time, the school put together a team to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), an international contest that pits the robotic creations of students against each other in a specific performance challenge.In its first year of competing, Landstown was one of the teams who made it to the worldwide finals.
“It was almost hard to believe at first,” said senior Alex Newbern. “It’s crazy.”
His teammates agreed.
“It definitely felt like a dream,” said Caleb Whitney, a fellow senior in the STEM Academy. “It didn’t feel real.”
It may not have felt real, but with just a few weeks to prepare, the team was traveling to compete against competitors from Mexico, Israel, the Netherlands and from here in the United States. 68,000 students from 2,700 teams across the world participated in the FRC in 2014. Of those 2,700 teams, 400 FRC teams qualified for the World Championship in St. Louis, Mo.
Landstown’s new team held its own. They came in 82nd in their division, and they were named to the Top 10 of rookie teams for their division as well.
While impressive, their success should not be surprising.
Throughout the year, STEM and Technology Academy students have earned rave reviews and myriad accolades in a variety of events and competitions.
In February, the Batten College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University hosted the Engineering Open House and Design Contests. Landstown High School took home big honors there, including:
- Personal Piloted Vehicle Contest,(earned for designing an aircraft for one and making a presentation about the design): Michael Delacruz – First Place
- Rube Goldberg Contest, designing a complicated 10 stage mechanism that accomplishes a simple task: Tyler McDaniel – First Place
- Amelia Earhart Contest, designing and building a glider from limited recycled items which will fly the farthest: Tyler McDaniel – Second Place
- Boat Contest, designing a small boat which uses a single AA battery to run a small motor and travels fastest down a trough: Andre Cumberland – First Place; Michael Delacruz – Second Place
- Egg Drop Contest, designing a mechanical device that protects an egg from the impact of a 2 story drop: Dexter Hubbard – Second Place
Academy students also participated and placed at the Virtual Enterprises International Trade Fair (VEI) held in March. The team Less Than Mainstream placed in the following seven competitions:
- First place in Company Apparel – Nylea Johnson
- Second place in Impact Marketing – Arooba Ayaz, Janet Mineva, Natalie Shelby
- Third place in Printed Sales Materials – Cory Petinga, Nikki Ligo
- Third place in Marketing Case Study – Shawntel Johnson, Damien Dobos
- Fourth place in Human Resource Case Study and Employee Manual – Yasmonia Mack, Nicole De Perio, Adrian Daniels and William Escobar
- Fourth place in Website Design – Justin Robles, Damien Dobos
Again in that same month, students also entered the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) competitions. The Landstown “Pier Pressure” team took home Best Design History Notebook, which was earned for the most professional and captured the team’s journey throughout the design process.
Awards and honors aside, the students at the STEM and Technology Academy credit their years in the program as the greatest prize. The work they do in the classroom each day automatically prepares them for future careers – partly because they feel like their coursework is a job already.
“Honestly, when I wake up and go to school, I don’t feel like I’m going to school; I’m feel like I’m going to work,” Whitney said. “I can talk to other kids and say, ‘I build robots.’”
Building robots and winning awards – not a bad way to spend your high school career.
“Things you’ve seen and you never thought you get to do, you get to do,” Newbern said.