Brian Paychek

Miguel Martinez, Bryant Michel, Kathaline Villavicencio, Sam Rangel, Bianca Nicolas, and Sebastian Cruz taking a picture after they got back from the competition.

Morton East engineering students competed in the IDEA Engineering, Architecture, and the Machine CAD competition.

Morton East took two teams and one individual to the regional competition which took place March 8^th, at Triton College. We had an Engineering and an Architecture design team. Our Engineering team consisted of three students, Kathaline Villavicencio, Sam Rangel, and Bryant Michel. Our architecture team had two students, Sebastian Cruz and Bianca Nicolas. We also had an individual competition entry for Machine CAD in which Miguel Martinez participated in. Morton East competed for 1^st place in our three entries against Morton West, and OPRF.

The results were the following: Engineering Design (2nd), Architecture Design (1st), Machine CAD (1st). Our Architecture Design team and our Machine CAD entry will be heading to state April 19^th. This year was Mr. Brian Paycheks first competition as our new Engineering teacher!

“I would love to continue to be a part of the IDEA competition. I think it is a tremendous opportunity for Morton students to show that they can be just as capable and competitive as any other school in the state,” said Mr. Brian Paychek.

All of the students felt really nervous about this competition.

“I felt nervous during the architecture competition. I hoped that what I did for the project was being looked at the way I saw it. That not only did I meet the bare minimum but also have enough “wow” to catch the attention,” said senior Sebastian Cruz.

The prompt was challenging for all our students, it was even challenging for teachers to understand.

“Since I do not have any background in architecture it is difficult for me to recommend specific changes, but in general the sheer volume of required material for the IDEA architecture team challenge is daunting for anyone at the high school level, especially without having access to an architecture course or instructor,” said Mr. Brian Paychek.

Students hoped they understood the IDEA prompt correctly.

“Being two engineering students competing in a architecture project is already a challenge. Along with having almost no sources to reach out to, I definitely feel we needed more help. The difficulty of the idea challenge is trying to understand not only want the client wants but also how to implement it into your project,” said senior Sebastian Cruz.

Students not only have to work on this competition, but they also have homework and after school activities they have to focus on.

“I wish we had more time because it was hard to motivate my group to come together when there were more immediately important tasks to complete, such as homework, tasks from other clubs we’re participating in, household responsibilities and etc. We were only able to get things done as a group the week of said competition, therefore with more time, we might have been able to learn how to organize ourselves better,” said senior Kathaline Villavicencio.