GHS robotics team best of the BEST

October 31, 1999
Greenville Herald Banner

Herald-Banner Staff Report

PRINCETON.  The Greenville High School Robotics Team was named best of the BEST Saturday during the Collin County competition.

The students finished fourth out of some 30 high school teams in the Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology contest for their robot's performance and then captured the BEST award for their notebook chronicling the project and profiling the students.

This was the local team's first appearance in the competition.

Members of the team are "drivers" of the robot, Darby Collier, Brian Deuell, Buddy Kimberlin, Josh Thatcher and Matt Wineinger, crew boss Andrew McClellen and notebook organizers Shaunna Torrance and Jessica Shook.

Earl Shook, a Raytheon engineer, is the mentor and Russ Chambers is the team consultant.

As a result of the GHS finish it will be one of 50 teams going to state competition on Nov. 19-20 in College Station.  Sponsor Vanessa Pope said the team members will be working to raise funds for the trip.

Pope said she was especially proud of the notebook recognition because this is where the complete skills of all the students are recognized.  It covers all the ideas that were discussed about the machines (robots), all the brainstorming that was done to complete the project and a profile of the students that included not only classroom skills, but also community service involvement.

She noted that the GHS Robotics Team members participated in such programs as Habitat for Humanity and the school district's HOSTS Mentoring project.

Besides the notebook win and machine finish the GHS robot was also named "The Most Robust Machine."

"It was one of our smaller machines, but it never broke down," said McClellen.  "We used screws to hold ours together, not duct tape or glue," he said.

"We were sitting around eating candy while the others were having to work on their machines," McClellen said.

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