Comal ISD engineering team wins awards in national competition

4 students from Canyon Lake High School won three awards competing against teams from across country

Canyon Lake High School seniors pictured from left, James Lalonde and Pierce Heller, were part of the engineering team which won three awards for its autonomous vehicle in a national competition. Other members not pictured include Angilina Abolos and Dalton Stanley. (Photo Courtesy: Comal ISD)

SAN ANTONIO – Four students at Canyon Lake High School recently won three awards in a national competition that challenged them to re-engineer a “Power Wheels Jeep”, according to a press release from Comal ISD.

9th grade student Angilina Abolos, senior Pierce Heller, senior James Lalonde and junior Dalton Stanley all received the Engineering Award, the Execution Excellence Award and second place in Virtual Performance for their entry in the Autonomous Innovative Vehicle Design Challenge.

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“Each entry was judged on the engineering disciplines utilized, understanding of vehicle engineering principles, engineering processes, decision making and curation of artifacts,” Patrick Fallin, engineering and robotics teacher at Canyon Lake High School said.

The press release said the competition was part of 2021 Square One Innovative Vehicle Design (IVD) Competition which took place May 18 and 19 at Kettering University in Michigan. The CLHS team was among 17 virtual teams who competed in the STEM-focused challenge with 21 in-person teams competing.

Fallin said he incorporated the competition into his principles of engineering and engineering math classes.

“Interested students could also get involved through the engineering/robotics club, but this year all of the students were in one of the classes and completed 90% of the work during class time,” he said.


About the Author:

Ben Spicer is a digital journalist who works the early morning shift for KSAT.