Vo-tech students take 3rd place in nation at competition
BUTLER TWP — Every program at Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School was demonstrated to the nation in one 4-foot by 4-foot by 7-foot project — from architecture to design to cosmetology, “everyone got their hands dirty.“
The school team managed to score 906.60 points out of a possible 1,000 at the SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference, winning third place in Chapter Display in the nation for its hourglass-time capsule concept. The theme of the competition was “Our Time is Now.”
The project, nicknamed “The Jonathan,” uses paper balls like sand in an hourglass to keep track of time, and later on, students can look back at what they wrote on the balls to reflect on their time at school. They also get a prize for participating.
“The entire thing is to help students with reflection and preparation for the future,” said Shiane Chalkley, a senior at Knoch High School. “They will answer one of these questions, crumble it up, put it in the hourglass and spin it. Then you press a button and you get a prize with a link to the website.”
Lee Ann Clutter, a graphic design instructor and adviser for SkillsUSA at the vo-tech school, said four students traveled to Atlanta, Ga., in June to participate in the competition. Shiane along with Bennett Shaw, a senior at Knoch, and Jon Crowley, a senior in the Slippery Rock Area School District, won third place for the chapter display; and Viktoriya Semenenko participated in the graphic design competition.
Clutter said it was the first time students from the school placed at the national competition, and the first time the school won the state competition and competed at nationals since the 1990s.
“There were 25 other schools there,” Clutter said. “You compete at states first, which was in Hershey.”
While the project involved students from every program at the vocational-technical school, Shiane, Bennett and Jon led the project in the design, construction and electrical programs.
Shiane came up with the original idea and design for the project, and handed it off to Jon to build.
“After she gave me blueprints, me and my teacher ran it through a bunch of different building processes, and came up with one easy way,” Jon said. “We started with the top and bottom of the whole structure and built it out.”
Bennett worked with Jon to make the project light up, which came with its own challenges.
“There is an outlet where we plug LEDs in. The problem with it was that it all had to come back to one switch,” he said.
Students in other programs at the school worked on other aspects of the project, such as painting it and putting it all together, according to Shiane. Overall, it involved 35 students and 214 hours — “and a lot of days after school.”
“It had to involve all 15 classes, so we taught at least one or two kids from each class how to stain wood,” Shiane said.
During the SkillsUSA conference, the students found out the theme for the upcoming year’s competition, which is “No Limits.” Shiane said the team immediately started brainstorming.
“We were instantly coming up with ideas, and whatever we first came up with, we scratched it out,” she said, “because if we came up with it first, everyone came up with it.”
For taking first place in the state competition, the students each earned a $5,000 scholarship to the Pennsylvania College of Technology, Clutter said.
Tonya Blank, health assistant instructor and SkillsUSA adviser at the school, said that in addition to the technical experience the students get through competing, they also get experience in working with and managing other people with different skills.
“I think that is probably the biggest thing more than the actual item is communication between the life skills of having to talk and communicate with people and come out of your comfort zone,” Blank said.
