A trio of students from Fowler High School has placed first in the SECME National Student Competition in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The team of Tuyen Huynh and Tuyen Q. Huynh, 2012 Fowler graduates, and Filimon Tekle, who will be a senior in September, won the robotics competition. The group was competing against representatives from schools around the country.
Coach Rob Woolery, a science teacher at Fowler, said students from Fowler have been competing for three years and this team finished third at last year’s competition.
“They started working on their robot in July, right after last year’s competition. They worked all summer and the robot has been revised five times since September,’’ Woolery said. “They worked two days a week, every week, for a year to prepare for this.’’
Woolery said he was proud of the team and is pleased at the effect their success has had on other students at Fowler.
“”It’s good to see them accomplish this and it has energized a lot of other students at the school,’’ he said. He expects to field six teams of five students each for next year’s competition. He wants each team to have its own Web site for promotional purposes.
“It’s not only about ingenuity, but it’s also about what parts you can afford,’’ Woolery said. Many of the teams the students competed against at the VEX Robotics Competition in the spring had national sponsors, who helped defray costs for the teams. He said he hopes having the teams set up Web sites will draw sponsors.
