Lockport drafting and design students earn gold at state
On April 27, the Illinois Design Educators Association (IDEA), in conjunction with the department of technology at Illinois State University, held its annual state drafting and design competition for secondary students from the State of Illinois.
Eight Lockport Township High school students qualified and competed in the state drafting contest this year.
The IDEA drafting contest is one of the largest competitions held in the United States, which features some of the best and brightest drafting and design students in Illinois.
All competitions were judged by engineers, architects and college professors in the drafting and design field. This year, over 200 students competed in ten different categories.
At the competition, the students in individual events were given a drawing problem to solve and draw within a two-hour time limit.
For the architecture design competition, the student team was presented with a residential redesign project in January. They presented their work on the project with a model, drawings, and renderings at the competition.
(Pictured is the architecture design team (from left): Aldo Guerrra, Naser Salem, Bill Centano, Jeff Brown).
For the engineering design competition, the student team was presented with an invention/innovation project in January.
At the competition, they presented their research, prototype, drawings, renderings, engineering notebook/portfolio, marketing and packaging
Seven of the eight Lockport Township High School students competing in this year’s contest earned first place:
Pictured is the engineering design team (from left): Daniel Arechiga, Caleb Speechley, Jeff Brown, Jon Naughton.)
Matthew Stonis achieved first place (state champion) in 3D Assembly Modeling.
Architecture design team of Aldo Guerra, Naser Salem and William Centano achieved first place (state champion) with a perfect score.
Engineering design team of Jonathan Naughton, Daniel Arechiga and Caleb Speechley achieved first place (state champion) with a perfect score. Bryce Bejlovec, who won the regional in March, also competed in the Introductory CAD division.
Although he did not finish top three, he performed well at the competition. Jeff Brown, Teacher, LTHS College & Career Applications Department
“These students put in many extra hours outside of class time to prepare for these contests, and their efforts paid off," Jeff Brown, teacher in the LTHS college and career applications department, said in a news release from the school. "I was so proud of all eight of the students for what they accomplished to qualify for state and how well they did at the competition.
"They all performed great at regionals and yet they did not let that go to their heads. They kept working even harder and improved for state. This is by far the most successful state drafting competition for LTHS. It will be hard to top seven state champions in one year.”
(Pictured is Matthew Stonis with LTHS teacher Jeff Brown).