GICA News
Robotics team eyes top world ranking
January 26, 2011
Brunswick News – Local News
By ERIKA CAPEK
Golden Isles Career Academy student Zach Bennett thinks his team has what it takes to be one of the top robotics teams in the world.
It just might. At the VEX Round-Up Tournament of Champions at Lowndes High School last week, Zach's team went undefeated in all 10 matches. The win qualified it for the world championship in Orlando. Zach is confident. "I think we stand a chance," he said. Their goal at the world competition, which will be at the ESPN Conference Center at Disney World, is to be one of the top 10 teams.
Teams typically have six or seven members, including two "drivers" who control different parts of a robot, such as its drive motors, lift basket and arm. There is also a coach and a support team.
Maddy Guest, a coach and senior at the career academy, said competitions are intense and added that going to the world championship will be a first for her. As coach, she has to pay close attention to what goes on during the competition. "I help them see the bigger picture and what all the other robots are doing," Maddy said. As for the competition, students score points by controlling their robots to pick up as many rings as they can and place them on goals around the game field in two minutes. They can also have the robot climb a ladder for additional points near the end of the time period.
Patrick Gunter, engineering/technology teacher at Golden Isles Career Academy, said he expects more than one career academy team will qualify for the world championship. There will be another qualifying competition at the career academy in February. The career academy has two high school teams and four middle school teams. Gunter said he would like to see two or three middle school teams and the second high school team make it to Orlando. "We're teaching these kids real hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)," Gunter said. "We're involved in that every day." Middle school students on the robotics teams meet after school, while high school students work on their robots during class and sometimes after school. "Right now, we're working on programming," Zach said. "That's our main focus."
He said he's looking forward to seeing the different designs of robots at the world competition, which will include 700 to 800 teams.
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Career Academy looks ahead
December 16, 2010
Brunswick News – Local News
By ERIKA CAPEK
With one semester as chief executive officer of Golden Isles Career Academy practically under his belt, Rick Townsend says he better understands the needs of the school and the community.This is the second year the career academy, a charter public school at 4404 Glynco Parkway, is offering career programs to students in grades nine through 12. "I understand the community has set high expectations for the school and its staff, and we're going to meet those expectations," said Townsend, who has been at the job since August. "I'm excited about the future." Townsend is thinking about how to improve the school.
One proposal he's working on is the creation of a foundation board.
The main role of the board would be achieving financial goals. It also would be responsible for a scholarship program for post-secondary training for students, service learning and finding ways to fund school competitions. Although board members have yet to be determined, Townsend said he hopes to have the board in place in the next 60 days.
Townsend also would like students at the school to do more service projects. The career academy is now partnered with two groups - Lord of Life Christian Montessori School on St. Simons Island and FaithWorks Ministry in Brunswick - for service learning projects. Townsend said he is working with Wright Culpepper, executive director of FaithWorks, to find ways to match talents of students to needs of the organization. He would like to see the number of service projects tackled by the student body grow. "I'm hoping to start community service projects full-force and get the word out in January," Townsend said. "Giving back to the community is so important. It gives our kids that real world experience in the field." Enrollment is another area of focus for Townsend. The academy has 413 students enrolled first semester. Townsend expects about 400 in the 2011 spring semester. "We've really started beefing up our recruiting efforts," he said.
In January, a career academy fair will be held at the high schools, at which students will receive in-depth information about programs that are offered.
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Student finds passion in filmmaking
November 1, 2010
Brunswick News – Local News
By LINDSEY ADKISON
Ryan Blount appears to be shy and polite 17-year-old. He is also an ambitious filmmaker. Ryan's interests were in art and meteorology, until at age 7, when his father gave him a video camera and the desire to be a director began. He was also drawn in by one particular film. "I had watched 'Independence Day.' They had a whole lot bunch of special effects," Ryan said. "I realized that I could entertain people in that way. That's how it started." Blount, a Brunswick High School student who also attend the Golden Isles Career Academy, has already developed films.. The first was "The Fight," followed by "The Streets of San Andreas." His latest and most popular film is "The Misadventures of Ryan and Neco (MRN)."
"At first, I kept my career to myself. Then people started to find my work on YouTube," he said. "The Misadventures" film starred Ryan and his best friend, Neco Trimmings. It told of how two teenagers could have fun on a boring Saturday afternoon. "Now it's kind of embarrassing to watch," Ryan said. The film was well received by others, and it was followed by two sequels: "MRN: Mystery of the Masked Man" and "MRN: Revelations."
"In the Mystery of the Masked Man, Neco is trying to write an 1,000 word action film about a masked man," he said. "MRN: Revelations," his latest film, was recently screened at the Ritz. It deals with a more scientific theme -- human cloning. "I read something about human cloning," he said. "I started writing the script around December and we finished filming around September." He is happy with the results -- for now, he said. "But as I develop and move further along in my career I might look back and wonder 'what was I doing,'" Ryan said with a laugh.
Ryan will enter the film program at Full Sail University in Orlando, Fla., in the fall of 2011. He plans to absorb as much as he can. Afterward, he hopes to follow in the footsteps of some of his favorite directors, including Martin Scorsese and M. Night Shyamalan. "I'll never stop making films," he said.
When he isn't behind the camera, Ryan is the typical teenager. "I like to draw. That's one of my favorite hobbies," he said. "I like music and to hang out with my friends." He also focuses on giving to others. He's established the Ryan Christopher Blount Scholarship Foundation for gifted students in the area of art and entertainment. The first scholarship will be awarded to a student enrolled at the Golden Isles Career Academy in the class of 2012.
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Robotics team set to compete
October 30, 2010
Brunswick News – Local News
By ERIKA CAPEK
There will be more competition for some students in Glynn County today than the Georgia-Florida football showdown. Five robotics teams from Golden Isles Career Academy will compete in the VEX Robotics Tournament of Champions this morning. About six students are on each team, and the Glynn County middle and high schoolers participating will go against 12 other teams from across the state.
"We've been preparing since last April," said Zach Bennett, a senior at Golden Isles Career Academy. "As soon as we got done with the World Championship in Dallas, we started working again." In April, the robotics team finished 39th out of more than 400 teams in the world at the 2010 VEX Robotics Competition World Championship. Today's tournament is hosted by the career academy, and students spent the day on Friday preparing. "There is a lot of programming," Zach said. "That's one of our major concerns. The design (of the team's robot) has changed about three or four times. It's a lot of structural things: Electrical engineering, mechanic engineering and structural engineering."
There are four robots per match, and two person's control each robot. One student is the driver and the other operates the robot's arm, which is used to pick up items. Teams get points by picking up and placing items in certain places.Near the end of the match, they also get points for having the robot climb a ladder. The competition is the first of eight for the school year. Glynn Academy sophomore, Page Tharpe, 15, said this will be his first competition. "I'm a little nervous," he said. "I've been learning how to program."
Students have been practicing in class and after school. Students from Glynn Middle School and Jane Macon Middle School are also participating and go to the career academy after class. The opening ceremony will begin at 9:15 a.m. today at the Golden Isles Career Academy, 4404 Glynco Parkway, and will be followed by qualification rounds until noon. After a lunch break, qualification rounds will continue with the final round of competition beginning at 2:30 p.m.
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Career Academy enrollment climbs
August 23, 2010
Brunswick News – Local News
BylineBy ERIKA CAPEK The Brunswick News
Southside Performance Learning Center, now under the roof of the Golden Isles Career Academy at 4404 Glynco Parkway, is giving the career academy a much needed boost in enrollment this semester. On the first day of classes Thursday, there were 448 9th through 12th grade students from Brunswick High School and Glynn Academy and an additional 80 Performance Learning Center students. That gives the academy a total student count of 528 - a record since its opening just one year ago. There are 13,000 students in the public school system.
The Performance Learning Center - a partnership of Glynn County schools and Communities in Schools that helps students who are off track for graduation - was previously at 1405 H St. It was moved to the academy for the first time this year. The Career Academy continues to draw students from the county's two public high schools, which bus teens to the facility daily. For many, it's an opportunity to expand their skills and knowledge. Those in a computer applications class said Friday they are excited about taking courses at the career academy. "I wanted to learn more about computers," said Kimberly Cross, a Brunswick High School 10th grader. "We learned how to type business letters so far."
School officials said enrollment is expected to rise even higher as high school students work out schedule changes. That's good news to Ralph Gornto, director of high school operations at the career academy, who expects final enrollment to be close to 540 to 550 students. "Things look much better today than they did last year," Gornto said Thursday. He said they will continue to make improvements and work toward increasing enrollment numbers.
During fall semester 2009, the first year the $19 million school opened, 444 high school students were enrolled. That number dropped by 80, or by 18 percent, to 364 in spring semester. Academy officials speculated at the time that the number of students went down after the novelty of the Golden Isles Career Academy wore off and because of an inflexible core class scheduling for students, which the school system has addressed. This year is the first time all grade levels will be able to take core classes at the career academy, including English, social studies, math and science.
The classes use educational 20/20 software, which is computer-based instruction with learning standards built into it. Gornto said the four E 20/20 classrooms, which have a capacity of about 25 students, were full on the first day. Last year, academic classes, which included both E 20/20 and face-to-face instruction, were only available to seniors, and science was not offered.
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Robotics team gets corporate boost from Georgia Pacific
April 21, 2010
Brunwick News – Local News
By ERIKA CAPEK The Brunswick News
With a little financial help from Georgia Pacific Cellulose, the Golden Isles Career Academy Robotics Team will leave today for Texas to compete in the VEX World Robotics Competition. The nine students received a $5,000 check to help them get to their destination in Dallas. That news was shared Tuesday during the Glynn County Board of Education meeting.Patrick Gunter, director of engineering at Golden Isles Career Academy, and Ralph Gornto, director of high school programs at the academy, said they're looking forward to the end results. "They leave today, so hopefully we'll keep up with them throughout the week and know by Friday or Saturday how they did," Gornto said.
Gunter said the students could not have done so well without the support of the community. The VEX Robotics World Championship is a gathering of top robotic teams from around the world. It will include about 150 VEX Robotics Competition tournaments throughout the competition.
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Tom Connolly Receives Appreciation Award from GICA
Mr. Tom Connolly, former Chairman of GICA Executive Board, received an award of recognition and appreciation from Mr. Dave Erickson, current Chairman of the GICA Executive Board at a ceremony at the Career Academy in February. Tom Connolly served as Chairman of the Board at GICA for three years during the critical planning, building and opening of this remarkable new charter school. Tom Connolly currently serves as Director of Community Development at GICA.
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Altamaha Technical College Board Members Meet at GICA
Left to right: GICA Chef Lee Cranz, ATC Board Member - Randal Morris, ATC President - Lorette Hoover, ATC Board Members Jeff Baxley, Ted Buford, Grant Gainer, Joel Hanner, and Clifford Davis. Also pictured are adult and high school culinary arts students. ATC Board Chairperson - Lana Cooper was not available for the photo.
An Executive Board meeting for Altamaha Technical College (ATC) was was held at the Golden Isles Career Academy on Wednesday, February 17th, at 9:00 am. It was ATC’s first Executive Board meeting on the GICA campus. ATC Board members toured the GICA campus at the end of the meeting. They were also served a continental breakfast prepared by Chef Lee Cranz and the GICA Culinary Arts students
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GICA VEX Robotics Team on Its Way to World Competition
Brunswick, January 25, 2010 —
The Golden Isles Career Academy’s (GICA) Engineering and Manufacturing students made a
‘clean sweep’ Saturday at the VEX Robotic Clean Sweep Competition in Valdosta, GA, where the 9-member team won 1st place.
“Our team held 1st place all day,” said Patrick Gunter, Engineering and Manufacturing Instructor, who notes the success of the students was due to many hours of preparation. The VEX Robotics competition entitled, “Clean Sweep,” sponsored by Innovation First, Inc., is the next generation of educational robotics competitions. The purpose of these competitions is to address the shortage of students choosing to become scientists, engineers and problem solvers using technology. Mr. Gunter notes, “There just aren?t enough high school students choosing technology-related majors when going to college. Most students who would qualify to major in Engineering lack interest in the field. Robotics has a strong appeal to today?s students, and these competitions use robotics as a very powerful platform to attract students to the study of science and technology.”
The GICA Robotics team, comprised of Sean Metcalf, GA senior; Dominic Clarke, GA senior; and Luke Barrow, GA junior; Joshua Francis, BHS senior; Zachary Bennett, BHS junior; Justin Adams, BHS junior; Carla Verduzco, BHS junior; Megan Leggett, BHS sophomore; and Frank Knight, BHS sophomore, competed against 14 other teams from the southeastern Georgia region for a guaranteed spot to compete in the world competition.
The VEX Robotics World Championship is a gathering of top robotics teams from around the world, including China, Korea and India, to celebrate their accomplishments and compete with and against the best of the best. The 2010 VEX Robotics World Championship will include top teams from approximately 150 VEX Robotics Competition tournaments and will be held in Dallas, TX, April 22-24, 2010.
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Altamaha Technical College attends Expo for the Georgia School Counselors
Association.
Far left standing up is Nathaniel and Daniel Szokoly and the far right in
back with White chef hat is Lee Cranz, Sarah Smith and Haley Harvey Chef Jennifer Evans, Lauralee Worth, Lyndsey
Branch and Eric Evans
Some of the top programs that Altamaha Technical College and the 27 other
institutions in the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) have to offer
were recently on display for the state's school counselors during the TCSG
Expo 2009 at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta.
The event, held in conjunction with the annual conference of the Georgia
School Counselors Association, highlighted some of the more than 600 degree,
diploma and certificate programs that are available at TCSG colleges. More
than 800 counselors browsed program displays and met college presidents,
faculty, staff and students while enjoying delicacies from a 100-foot long
appetizer buffet created by the chefs and students from colleges with
culinary arts programs.
Altamaha Technical College's highlighted program was Culinary Arts. The six
students and two chefs from the Hazlehurst Campus and Golden Isles Campus
put on quite a spread. They prepared and presented a delicious array of
foods focusing on a Middle Eastern theme. "I am so proud of our students,"
stated college President Lorette M. Hoover "They worked extremely hard to
prepare their menu and to present it professionally".
Four out of the six Culinary Arts students, were high school dual enrollment
students from Jeff Davis High School and Golden Isles Career Academy. Dual
enrollment allows eligible high school students to earn college credit while
in high school.
"We want Georgia's school counselors to know that there are plenty of very
good reasons why the Technical College System of Georgia can be their
students' first choice for a great college education and a future career,"
said TCSG Commissioner Ron Jackson. "TCSG colleges offer individualized
instructor attention, affordable tuition and excellent career opportunities,
and people are taking notice that technical education is today's pathway for
tomorrow's jobs."
Enrollment is booming at the technical colleges, with a record-breaking
110,000 students enrolled in the current fall quarter. Altamaha Technical
College saw an 84.5% increase since last Fall Quarter. "This was our largest
enrollment in the history of the college," stated Hoover.
A recent study by the Georgia Governor's Office of Student Achievement
reported that TCSG colleges ranked among the top ten most popular college
choices for graduating seniors in 165 state school systems and a TCSG
institution was the number one college choice in 62 of those systems.
For more information about the programs and services offered at Altamaha
Technical College please call 800-645-8284 or visit the website at
www.altamahatech.edu.
Altamaha Technical College conducts college level program classes in Culinary Arts at the Golden Isles Career Academy
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Opening Day at GICA – Thursday August 6, 2009!
GICA students on opening Day!
Broadcast/Video students in the video studio on the first day of class. Photo compliments of Bobby Havens – The Brunswick News
GICA instructor demonstrates in the Broadcast/Video Editing lab. Photo compliments of Bobby Havens – The Brunswick News
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Governor Perdue is Keynote Speaker
At GICA Grand Opening Event
Over 400 guests attended the Grand Opening Ceremony of the Golden Isles Career Academy on Wednesday, June 24th 2009. The official ceremony began at 11:30 pm and was followed by a buffet luncheon.
Governor Sonny Perdue was the keynote speaker, joined by other state and local officials which included State Representative, Jerry Keene, and Chief of Staff of the Georgia Lieutenant Governor’s office, Mr. Bart Gobeil. Also speaking was Georgia State Senator, Tommie Williams, Glynn County Commissioner, Tony Thaw, and Chairman of the Glynn County Board of Education, Millard Allen.
A delicious barbeque buffet was prepared by the culinary students of the Coastal College of Georgia. Tours were also given of the new 130,000 square foot Golden Isles Career Academy facility. Many local donor investors of GICA were also recognized and thanked for their valuable contributions to the building of this new charter school.
Governor Perdue addresses the guests during the GICA Grand
Opening Ceremony
Governor Perdue was introduced by State Representative Jerry Keene
Glynn County Board of Education Chairman, Millard Allen.
GICA Board
Chairman, Tom Connolly, seated behind
Glynn County Commissioner, Mr. Tony Thaw
Over 400 guests attended the grand opening ceremony
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GICA Congratulates the Welding Students!
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