Kenny McMillian, Dalton Buxton, Andrew Notony, Ashton Blobaum and Zach Furron just recently attended the SkillsUSA State Leadership Conference in Grand Island, Ne at Fonner Park. The boys did very well at the competition placing 3rd and medaling in Advanced Drones at the High School Level and Basic Drones at the High School level as well. The “Basic Drone” competition is geared for freshman and Sophomores while the Advanced Drone competition is more for Juniors and Seniors. This years basic drone team consisted of Zach Furrow and Ashton Blobaum. Despite a few technical difficulties the boys managed to place third. Students are judged on their Engineering Notebook which has many things in it from the FAA license to the flight time logs, safety and how to operate the drone safely. A parts list is also included in case you crash and break items. The boys informed me that although flight was not so good, the notebook and the written test were better. The same story went on with Dalton Buxton and Andrew Novotny. They too placed 3rd in the state and flew against some pretty tough competition. The drone we used was a Phanton 3 and it was almost a bit too big for the hoops they had to fly through. Students Kenny McMillian and Zach Furrow entered the Metric 500 competition where they design, build and test a CO2 car out of balsa wood. The boys found stiff competition in this contest and although they did not place in the top 3, noone worked harder and longer than this group of Fairbury students getting ready for the competition. Upon arrival at the contest, students had to check in their car race ready.
Studens Kenny McMillian, Dalton Buxton and Andrew Novotony also took part in the Technical Team Problem solving challenge. Each year the challenge is different. This year the students had to construct a device that simulate a spacecraft that had a payload of a water bottle. This so called device had to protect the payload against meteorites. The payload was a small water bottle. The spacecraft had to also have a functioning door. The device that all made was weighed and the lightest one that did the best was declared the winner. The meteorites were nothing more than golf balls dropped at a series of different heights. The boys made a device out of the materials supplied at the beginning of the contest. The contest was timed as well. This is a design challenge and teaches them to work together collectively. Although they did not place in the top three, they did do a good job and their craft did not fail under pressure from the golf balls. Our group asked lots of questions and the judges seemed to be impressed. This competition had many entered and it took around three hours to complete from start up and explanation, to planning, to testing to final project.
Once again it was a fun time for all. There were some conflicts with other school activities for all the STS teachers in the state so numbers were down this year. The boys learned a lot and going up on the big stage at the end to receive a medal was priceless to see on their smiling faces. I was very proud of them all. Until next time, see ya!!!
