Burchell robotics wins second at state competition

WASILLA — The Burchell High School robotics class, along with teacher Diony Tribble, participated in the stringent and demanding Real World Design Challenge issued by Alaska’s lieutenant governor. The challenge was to design an unmanned aerial vehicle to find a lost girl in a blue jacket within a two-mile radius. They used the CREO engineering program to design their drone, which was based on the World War II-era P-38 aircraft (with much modification) to respond to the challenge.

In the students’ first attempt at this challenge, in only their second year in robotics, the team — made up of Jered Hersh, Nathaniel Alkire, Cammron McBride and Conner Floyd — took second place in the state competition.

“We did learn a lot. We used to look at the wing of an airplane and think ‘that is a wing.’ Now we look at a wing and think, ‘I wonder if they are using a NACA 4412,’” students wrote in their entry packet. “And then there are the business aspects of this challenge. Some of us thought we wanted to start our own business someday. Now, we all want to start our own businesses someday, but realize we still have more to learn.”

Students worked with industry experts, the Federal Aviation Administration, Alaska State Troopers, search and rescue and the U.S. Coast Guard to develop their design and methods for solving the problem.

Their mentors were Tim Veenstra of Airborne Technologies Inc. and David Meeker and August Asay of the Federal Aviation Administration. They applied math up to and including trigonometry, science, technology and art. Students exhibited a high level of applied learning, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and teamwork. They were introduced to engineering, computer programming, aviation and mathematics career fields and opportunities.

“Please join me in congratulating the team and Mr. Tribble,” Burchell Principal Adam Mokelke said.