• When Greater Atlanta Christian School presented the one-act play "John Lennon and Me" last month at the 11-state Southeastern Theater Conference in Greensboro, N.C., senior Rachel Finazzo was recognized as Best Actress and an All-Star Cast member. The troupe's performance of to a packed house of the comedy-drama, which brings attention to cystic fibrosis, received a standing ovation.
• Charles Drew High School's robotics team, The Drewbotics, earned the Rookie All-Star Award, the highest honor available to first time teams, in the FIRST Robotics Competition. The award celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort and implementing the mission of inspiring students to learn more about science and technology. "This experience was illuminating," said Nezetta Johnson, robotics coach at Charles Drew High School in Jonesboro. "We have come from a group of students with a limited knowledge of the competition to a team that has built a functioning robot that responds to commands and is doing what they are designed to do." Competition participants were allowed six weeks to design and build a robot — using a standard "kit of parts" — that can understand a common set of rules to play a game.
• Avneet Sethi, a senior at Meadowcreek High School, is the Gwinnett County Public Schools 2016 Career and Technical Education Student of the Year. The honor comes with a $1,000 scholarship. Sethi is one of 23 students honored during an awards banquet for their achievement in career and technical education courses during their high school careers. The other 2016 winners are Jonathan Jeffrey of Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, first runner-up, who won a $750 scholarship; and Zain Charaniya of Parkview High School, second runner-up, who won a $500 scholarship.
• One of two teams from the high school Engineering Essentials class at Living Science Home School Study Center in Woodstock won the TAG Manufacturing award at the 2016 Georgia Tech K-12 InVenture Challenge Competition. The team, sophomores Claire Crose and Everett Apple, also won second place overall with their WedgeTech device, which secures stacks of folding chairs to prevent them from collapsing. The Engineering Essentials class at Living Science exposes students to the many facets of engineering in a hands-on environment to help them determine whether they might like to pursue engineering as a career. Engineering teacher Michelle Crose, a third-generation Purdue engineer, said "I'm delighted that Living Science had the opportunity to partner with Georgia Tech for this competition. It gave the students a real-world engineering challenge and a chance to pitch their product to a variety of audiences." The InVenture Challenge, a significant portion of the class this year, involves identifying a problem, brainstorming solutions, creating a prototype, and testing the team's model.
• Five Paideia high school students recently were honored as 2016 Regional Georgia Scholastic Writing Award recipients. In the Gold Key category, Logan Casey was honored for short story, and Ahalya Ramgopal was honored for poetry. In the Silver Key category, Thuan Tran received two Silver Keys for poetry and an honorable mention for personal essay/memoir. Alexa Levy received two honorable mentions for poetry and Vlada Watkins received an honorable mention for personal essay/memoir.
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