Click the image to the left and log in to get your exclusive reader perks.
Hayden Poe sands down the paint on a car part as the first step in repairing a scratch, one of several challenges during the daylong Automotive Refinishing Technology competition Thursday at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta. Poe qualified for the national event by winning a gold medal at the state competition a month before he graduated from Heritage High School this spring.
Heritage High School students Burl Grubb and Luke Wiget present the robot they built and programmed for the Mobile Robotics Technology competition to judges in Atlanta on Thursday, June 23, at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference.
A robot built by Avery Rayfield and William LaForest at Heritage High School stands ready to run the Robotics Urban Search and Rescue course Thursday, June 23, at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta.
Dozens of students prepare to compete at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta on Thursday, June 23, along with Heritage High School graduate Hayden Poe, who showed his skills in refinishing automobiles.
Hayden Poe sands down the paint on a car part as the first step in repairing a scratch, one of several challenges during the daylong Automotive Refinishing Technology competition Thursday at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta. Poe qualified for the national event by winning a gold medal at the state competition a month before he graduated from Heritage High School this spring.
Heritage High School students Burl Grubb and Luke Wiget present the robot they built and programmed for the Mobile Robotics Technology competition to judges in Atlanta on Thursday, June 23, at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference.
A robot built by Avery Rayfield and William LaForest at Heritage High School stands ready to run the Robotics Urban Search and Rescue course Thursday, June 23, at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta.
Dozens of students prepare to compete at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta on Thursday, June 23, along with Heritage High School graduate Hayden Poe, who showed his skills in refinishing automobiles.
ATLANTA — Minutes before they were to board a bus Monday to the national SkillsUSA competitions in Atlanta, Heritage High School students turned on their robot for a final check, and the camera melted amid sparks and smoke.
Fortunately Avery Rayfield and William LaForest had two backup camera options for their entry in the Robotics Urban Search and Rescue competition.
“Our robot was designed for modularity, and it proved itself,” Rayfield said Thursday in Atlanta.
Unfortunately, during the one opportunity they had to run the robot through a course to find and retrieve simulated bombs, it lost voltage and stalled.
Rayfield said he wished that he had practiced driving the robot more, and the competition drove home for LaForest the importance of communication among the team members while the robot navigates the course, because the driver can view only what is seen through a camera and is separated from the course by a divider.
Just across from their event in one of three huge exhibit halls at the Georgia World Congress Center, HHS students Luke Wiget and Burl Grubb had multiple opportunities to practice and run their robot in Mobile Robotics Technology.
Judges like to mix up the challenge by changing elements and point values on a course where robots must run autonomously and by remote driver to complete various tasks. After arriving at the competition, “they have to completely reprogram the robot,” said engineering teacher Sam Warwick.
Returning to in-person competition this year after virtual events during the pandemic showed the value of having the teams in one room instead of on Zoom. One of the ideas Wiget saw that he’d like to incorporate in a robot next year is pneumatic controls.
When they weren’t competing, those four Blount County Schools students could chat with other teens who came from across the country for the national event after winning their state competitions.
Meanwhile in a far corner HHS student Hayden Poe was so focused on the tasks in his Automotive Refinishing Technology competition that he was barely aware of what the dozens around him were doing. When they stepped into a painting booth the contestants literally were covered from head to toe in required gear.
Working from 8 a.m. to nearly 4 p.m. Poe had to sand a surface with about a 3-inch scratch to prepare it for painting, tape off a car fender and door to prepare them for painting, operate a spray gun multiple times in a paint booth, identify and mix paint colors, and take a written test.
“State wasn’t anything compared to this,” the 2022 Heritage High graduate said of the competition in which he won a gold medal this spring, which qualified him to compete at the national level in Atlanta.
Thursday was “intense,” Poe said, and teacher Lynn Robinson, who watched him throughout the day, said it was like the Super Bowl for these competitors.
Color tinting was the biggest challenge for Poe, who has been practicing that this summer after work with Robinson at the school.
William Blount High School 2022 graduates who competed earlier in the week, Henry Myers in Pin Design, and Gracie Phinney and Julia Kessler in Mechatronics, will join the HHS students and about 5,000 others for the awards ceremony tonight, June 24, at State Farm Arena.
Heading back to their hotel around 5 p.m. Thursday after starting their competitions at 8 a.m., some of the students had just one goal for today: sleep in.
Amy Beth earned her degree from West Virginia. She joined The Daily Times in 2016 on the education beat covering Alcoa, Maryville and Blount County school systems.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Your comment has been submitted.
There was a problem reporting this.
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.
Have Breaking News delivered immediately to your inbox. Don't miss the next big story.
Receive a free weekly newsletter with money advice from Nerdwallet and Dave Ramsey, plus market reports and Blount business news. Register now for FREE.
Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.
Check your email for details.
Invalid password or account does not exist
Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.
An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account.
Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.
A receipt was sent to your email.