Bay Minette had two teams travel to the Technology Student Association National Conference, held in Nashville and brought home eight top 10 prizes — including two for first place and one for second. Bay Minette Middle School students were tops in the nation for Transportation Systems and Problem Solving competitions and earned a second-place win in Medical Technology Issues. The BMMS team also received five other top 10 finishes. Baldwin County High School also fielded a team for nationals. The teams qualified for the national competition after placing at the Alabama conference.

The final results for Bay Minette Middle included:

• Transportation Systems: Leanne Phillips, first place.
• Problem Solving: Cory Jerkins and Grey Johnson, first place.
• Medical Technology Issues: Jordan Johnson, Leanne Phillips and Madison Seale, second place.
• Techno Talk: Cory Jerkins and Chris Steward, fifth place (with Postlethwait Middle School in Delaware)
• Tech Bowl: Hunter Heathcock, Jonathan Davis and Madeline Seale, eighth place.
• System Control Technology: Jacob Turner, CJ Bennett and Dalton Minchew, ninth place.
• Multimedia Production: Matt Garron, eighth place.
• Essays in Technology: Jordan Johnson, 10th place.

Bay Minette Middle School was also received the TSA/American Cancer Society Spirit of Service Gold Level Award for Relay for Life fundraising. Hunter Heathcock, BMMS TSA president, received the award on behalf of the club, which raised $1,627.43 for the American Cancer Society. The team was also recognized in the 30+ Circle White CAP Chapter. The Chapter Affiliation Program designates the level of curriculum-integrated membership for the participating club and received the 2011-2012 State Superlative Membership Award for Largest Middle School White CAP Chapter.

Highlights from TSA National Leadership Conference 2012 - Written by Bill Allen - Team Advisor

Although not reflected in the awards ceremony, the true highlight of this year’s accomplishments has to be the Go Green Manufacturing. A team of 6 students gelled to form a company to create a useable and useful product that could be duplicated through engineering-based manufacturing processes. While some products were created from rags to make dog leashes and juice pouch purses BMMS students created a portable wind powered electrical generator from discarded athletic treadmills. It is the definitive project based learning example. Collaborating with electronics professionals Gary Haitt and Tim Simpson, North Baldwin Machine, Jonathon Davis, Madeline Seale, Cory Jerkins, Leanne Phillips, CJ Bennett, and Cassie Pardi developed from Cassie’s original wind mill idea the eventual product to create AC or DC electricity for use in remote areas by doctors, scientific researchers and emergency aid workers. Stunning effort from Bay Minette Middle. Without a doubt it was a show stopper at the conference, everyone who saw the project had to take pictures and ask questions. Bay Minette was a name in many conversations throughout the conference. Even people who did not see it were talking about it. The size and scale prohibited a second prototype from being manufactured and travelling to Nashville, an unfortunate aspect that caused to not be a finalist. The decision was made by students, parents, and advisors the size would be a prohibitative to recreate but the instead carry the smaller second variation of the wind turbine fan to represent the additional prototype. Bill Allen said, ‘we went with our decision based on the interpretation of the rules and the resources we could gather. I am beyond proud of these students; this is just one project they prepared for from the last day of the official school year till the morning of project turn in, there are not sufficient words to express their true level of achievement both on a personal level and representatives of the city of Bay Minette. This project has been invited to be displayed in New Orleans this July at the SREB national teaching convention for STEM based project –based learning.

I am honored as a teacher to be able to represent the students’ effort. How many people, let alone students, can receive an industrial engineering problem to separate and sort boxes of two sizes and colors by designing, building and programming an automated conveyor belt in two and a half hours? If you are in Bay Minette, Al., you can say at least three and each is under the age of 14. John “CJ” Bennett, Dalton Minchew, and Jacob Turner of Bay Minette were given the challenge to represent the state of Alabama in Systems Control technology, a competition where using their skills and experience found out the task on site and had just 2 ½ hours to brainstorm. Utilizing the engineering design process, the BMMS students developed and created a LEGO robotic based machine to sort the boxes by color and shape automatically by programming multiple sensors to intelligently perform the task without human supervision. This is an exclusive event even among TSA events”, said Bill Allen, one of the TSA advisors, I cannot program or create something like this at the speed or complexity our students perform. Of the 40+ HS teams and 16 middle school teams only one HS team completed the task to reset the machine when finished. For BMMS’s part, their effort was ranked #9, and one of the strengths recognized was in the ability to present their concept and software program to the judges. When contacted the event manager said, besides the great effort, BMMS had one of the best explanations to the judges from either MS or HS.

Jordan Johnson and Leanne Phillips placed second, nationally, in their presentation of the research for Prosthetics in Medical Technology Issues. When you read the research and then see these two present, you are convinced you are watching the Science channel. These are 14 and 13 yr. old professionals communicating and expressing the issues about prosthetic trends better than the representatives of the companies and foundations publishing the data Jordan and Leanne utilized in their report. Their attention to detail and preparation is remarkable.

Meanwhile, future Auburn Tiger engineer, Cory Jerkins, and future Bama engineer, Grey Johnson, got prepared for the coveted Problem Solving event competing against over 120 other teams representing the best of each chapter from across the nation. Nerve-racking stress could be the subtitle for this event. Using limited tools and time the problem is announced on site and students work together to create the best solution in this case fire as many paper balls, as far as possible, in the least amount of time. After two disappointing prototypes and time running out Cory and Grey devised a shotgun approach to launch 178 balls over 15ft in less than 5 seconds. They beat the second place team by 4 balls. When you hear about people the government and corporations call in the fix problems, huge egos and over the top personalities are the norm, these guys do not disappoint. Their swagger and confidence is overwhelming, they each led their middle school VEX robot teams up against 132 other teams only 11 were middle schools, trouble-shooting till 4am in the morning to gain some advantage.

Finally, there was Transportation Systems, the new boat competition utilizing rubber bands as motors to propel the boat down a rain gutter carrying up to three fishing sinkers. The two BMMS state champions chose to remain home to concentrate on baseball, leaving the opportunity for other students like Leanne Philips and Andrew Holley to represent BMMS. Everything that could present itself as an obstacle to these two showed up with one week before competition. Since we pushed our designs to the limit we encountered the troubles any innovator experiences while designing.

Eventually the work pays off, Andrew and Leanne had two of the fastest boats while factoring in the payload, Andrew’s boat was the fastest hands down, unfortunately too fast too powerful and the weights supplied at competition could not stay on the boat as it launched in the final test runs. Last to test, Leanne was still testing her boat in the bathtub of the hotel right before her heat. Since the weight shapes were different it required last minute testing. The first run was not sufficient so with the second run she made the adjustments and recorded the second fastest run overall but with the weight modifier moved past to record a 1.88 second run, 1st place before the notebook. Pressure to succeed? Mr. Allen added, “Leanne made her father and advisor leave the immediate area for the winning run because we were distracting her from doing her job.”