Lakota, Butler Tech Partnership Shines at National Tech Conference

Over 40 Lakota junior and high school students from Liberty Junior, Ridge Junior, Lakota East & Lakota West earned spots to compete at the national Technology Student Association (TSA) conference this summer in Louisville, Ky. The Lakota and Butler Tech teams, joined by 7,000 students hailing from 48 states and three other countries, placed in seven different national events: 

• 1st place Systems Controls - Ridge Junior School (Jack Guth, Jayden Scicluna & Max Sunkel)
• 1st Place Systems Controls - Lakota West High School (Jake Briede, Lucas Moody & Mason Ruggerio)
• 1st place Technology Problem Solving - Lakota East High School (Elijah Grissom & Aiden McCall)
• 2nd Place Animatronics - Lakota East High School (Payton Vordem Esche, Zach Henderson, Darrian Mathis & Nash McClelland)
• 6th place Problem-Solving - Liberty Junior School (Pehzad Banaji & Eagan Ellis)
• 7th place CAD Foundations - Ridge Junior School (Alex Winter)
• Top 10 in TEAMS Presentation (Test of engineering, pptitude, math and science) - Liberty Junior School (Haripriya Dhondi, Eagan Ellis, Aaron Matlack & Krishita Shah)

TSA is the STEM-related association that Lakota engineering students participate in at the state and national level. Lakota students enrolled in Butler Tech satellite classes (offered at their Lakota home school) can voluntarily compete at the local and state levels in an effort to advance to the national competition.

“The National TSA conference is an excellent event to showcase the successful partnership forged between Lakota and Butler Tech," said Butler Tech teacher Doug Noxsel, who teaches "Design & Modeling" at Liberty Junior School and is one of eight Butler Tech teachers who chaperoned the summer trip. "Our students compete with the very best of them and prove year after year that our programs prepare them to apply what they're learning to real scenarios."