HJHS wins awards in robotics competition
These members of Hartselle Junior High School’s robotics team are shown with their robot – Wall-E – after it helped them win six awards in competition at Wallace State Community College recently. Pictured, from left, are: (seated) Rachel McKelvy, Weston Baker, Elizabeth McCutcheon, Cassie Beth Powell and Cy Harris; (standing) Zane Green, Grant Jared, Liam Blair, Seth Ballew, Sloane Stewart, Holly Blankenship and Jasmine Jones. | Clif Knight
Hartselle Junior High School demonstrated its skill in robotics by capturing six awards in competition at the North Alabama BEST competition at Wallace State Community College recently.
As overall BEST winner, the team also advanced to the South’s Best competition, which will be held at Auburn University Dec. 2-3.
Awards won by the team in competition with 14 other junior high and high school teams were: third place in T-shirt design, Top Gun Award (most points scored during seeding rounds), second place in Robotics, first place in BEST marketing presentation, first place in Team Exhibit and Interview and first placed in BEST award.
Hartselle Junior High competed mostly against high school teams, as there were only two other junior high teams involved.
”We are very excited about winning and advancing,” said Elisa Harris, a gifted students teacher and robotics team sponsor. “It does a lot for our confidence to be able to compete successfully against junior and seniors in high school.
“This is our third year to field a team and it’s comprised of a miss of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students, some of whom have been with the program since it started. These kids are hard workers are very devoted to their tasks as team members.”
Seth Ballew, CEO, and Rachel McKelvy, COO, display the six awards Hartselle Junior High School won in robotics team competition at the North Alabama BEST competition at Wallace State Community College recently. | Clif Knight
“But, I must add that the success we’ve enjoyed would not have been possible had we not had the full support and participation of a wonderful group of parents. Their engineering skills have been put to good use in helping us design and build our robot.”
Harris said the team would continue to work nights after school to refine their robot and further prepare themselves for the South BEST, which will consist of teams from several southern states.
“I think it’s cool that we’ve been able to work together and be able to compete with the high schools and advance to the next level”,” said Seth Ballew, a third year team member and chief executive officer. “Our ability to work closely as a team helped us get this far and we’re going to keep working to refine our robot so that we’ll be better prepared when we go to Auburn.”
Rachel McKelvy, a second year team member and chief operations officer, added: “It’s an awesome feeling to be successful in what we’re doing. As team members we get to work in several fields of study, including design and engineering, oral presentations and marketing. “
Working with Seth and Rachel as team leaders are: Gracie Poe , CYO; Cassie Beth Powell, CFO; Jasmine Jones and Elizabeth McCutcheon, CMOs; Grant Jared, design director; Ben Kimbrough, construction director; Jeremiah Rhodes, design/construction coordinator; Melissa Ebeling, CMO/CTO coordinator; Sloane Stewart and Amanda Pride, marketing interns; Weston Baker, Liam Blair, Zane Green, Ben Kimbrough and Grant Jared, drivers; and Cy Harris and Jeremiah Rhodes, alternate drivers.
Other robotics team members are: Drew Harper, Christopher Bartholomew, Austin Higginbotham, Holly Blankenship, Erin Kenney, Blake Mozley, Carson Speegle, Aladee Thompson, Kara Anderson, Abigail Armes, John Ballew, Noah Birdwell, Kaylee Brown, Rachel Ryan, Isaac Cagle, Lane Copeland, Josh Cummins, Kennedy Edwards, Grace Ella Friar, Molly Green, Kaleb Gunter;
Cade Hendrickson, Dylan Harper, Nevin Hope, Bailee Isbell, Emma Lindsey, Blake Littrell, Jessica Lott, Anna Mathis, Becca Norton, Aunikka Pershin, Amanda Pride, Garrett Sexton, Kendall Sharp, Sawyer Smith, Preston Smith, Hailey Stewart, Zach Stringer, Sidnee Tidwell, Grant Wallace, Mary Watson, Delaney Wood and Parker Wright.
