Author name: Lynda

From March 10^th to 12^th, the Creekside Robotics Team 8775 competed in its first ever robotics competition.  The competition was sponsored by FIRST Robotics and was held at UCF. The competition consisted of two main challenges. The first of which was to collect oversized tennis balls on the floor, and to shoot them into a goal eight feet above the ground. The second challenge was even more problematic; get the 125-pound robot to climb a series of bars up to eventual height of more than 7 feet. To overcome these intimidating challenges, the team of students, teachers and volunteers from the Engineering and Cybersecurity Academy worked tirelessly to get the robot up and running for the competition. This hard work was shown in their every match. The Creekside team performed in a tour de force, fooling other teams into thinking that they were a seasoned veteran team. And on the final day, when the dust had settled, the team received a final ranking of 25^th out of the 56 teams – placing higher than every rookie team on the field. What may be even more impressive is that they were able to rank higher than more than half of the veteran teams on field, some of which had been competing for more than 20 years.

This tremendous success was a testament to the two months of demanding work that the Creekside team put into the robot before the competition. Students, teachers, and mentors alike spent long hours after school trying to get to robot up and running for the competition. These hours of CAD, manual labor, and ingenuity eventually paid off with a working robot and a trophy that is sure to stay in the Engineering Academy classroom for a long time.

National Engineers Week always begins during the week of George Washington’s birthday, as not only was he our first president he is considered to be the nation’s first engineer.  The 2022 Engineers week began February 21^st, with the annual Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Career Day occurring at the end of the week on Friday, February 25th.  Public, private and home-schooled students from northeast Florida were in attendance.

Students with an interest in STEM related fields found Career Day to be highly educational and enlightening.  Activities included hands-on projects, interaction with local engineers and several Florida universities, lunch, and a keynote speaker.

Participants competed in three events to take home the “Engineer Cup”, consisting of a take home project, a surprise project and an “engineering trivia challenge”.  The trivia challenge allows students to learn about actual engineering projects through interaction with local universities and engineering firms exhibiting at the event.  Take home and surprise projects were judged against a variety of criteria, and awards were given to the winning team for each of the three competitions.

The goal of the take home project was to construct a bridge using only uncooked spaghetti and hot glue that had the highest strength to weight ratio.

Creekside was the team with the highest overall average score of the three competitions and claimed the cup to display at CHS for the second consecutive year.  The winning team consisted of:

• Joseph Hadad
• Alex Wenzel
• Magnus Schmidt
• Luke Dixon

Congratulations to our Lady Knights!

7A State Champions

2022 Girls Soccer Team

Congratulations to Creekside’s Teaching Academy students who competed at the Florida Future Teachers of America state conference:

• FFEA State Secretary, 2022-23–Riley Hayes
• Inside Our Schools Video, 1^st place–Avery Karl, Viviana Zuniga, Yahli Salzman 
• Lesson Plan, 2^nd place–Julia Blasio
• Public Speaking, 5^th place–Bryn Fremont
• Education Research PPT, 5^th place--Riley Hayes, Ashley Carpenter, Ethan Were, Justice Heydn

Congratulations  to the Creekside High School Cyber Patriots team, TORtured Onions,  for placing 1st in the state.

Congratulations to the Creekside Girls Volleyball team on winning back-to-back district titles.

Senior Daniella Young won a prestigious Scholastic National Gold Key for a drawing she submitted to Scholastics Art Awards last December, 2020. After winning a Regional Gold Key, Daniella’s work went on to receive a National Award summer 2021. This is a huge achievement for Daniella as a National Gold Key winner. The CHS Art Department is proud of her success and her achievement!

Members of the Creekside High School Environmental Club recently participated in a local beach clean up project.

Nineteen students from the Engineering Academy volunteered with St. Johns Housing Partnership Saturday, September 25 to build an accessibility ramp at the home of a St. Johns County resident.  The project started at 8am and was finished at 2pm.  It was the 20^th ramp built by the Engineering Academy over the past 11 years.  Students used skills learned in their academy such as teamwork and measuring and put into practice their OSHA safety certifications.  They also learned how to use power tools such as the circular saw, the reciprocating saw, the rafter square and the pneumatic framing nailer.

You can donate to future ramp build projects through SJHP.org.

Creekside would like to congratulate the following students who have been named Semifinalist in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Competition.

• Ella Diab
• Jonathan Sanchez
• Gabriel Smith
• Kalvin Tan

The following students have been named as Commended Students in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program. Approximately 34,000 Commended students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise.

• Kyra Brenneman
• Shaan Chudgar
• Gurleen Dhillon
• Eduard Dodan
• Enrique Gonzalez
• Timothy Mai
• Ethan Muhl
• Christopher Parrett
• Corrigan Rotz
• Aryan Tiwari