HUGHESVILLE - Two projects from Hughesville High School and one from Montoursville Area High School achieved top honors at the May 25 Pennsylvania High School Computer Fair at Dickinson College, Carlisle.
Rabeka Showers and Brandt Snyder, both juniors at Hughesville High School, took first place in the Multimedia category. Their movie, made with the voice of fellow student Kelsey Murphy, describes the environmentally friendly changes being made in the East Lycoming School District.
Brandt Snyder and Jessica Culver, both from Hughesville High School, placed first in the Digital Movie category. Their movie, starring students Dallan White and Matthew McGee, illustrated a fight over a mysterious briefcase and used many movie-making programs and effects.
Kimberly Aul, a senior at Montoursville Area High School, placed third in Curriculum Web Design with her site that was a part of her graduation project and examined her trip to China as a student ambassador.
"I'm proud of Kimberly for being the first Montoursville student to get to the state competition," said her adviser, Linda Keiser.
Brandt Snyder became the first student in the state computer fair competition history to have two first places in the same year.
The PA State High School Computer Fair brings together some of the best and brightest tech savvy high school students in the state with 22 intermediate units participating, representing most of the school districts in Pennsylvania.
To participate at the state level, students must first place first at a regional computer fair. The Intermediate Unit 17 competition was held in March with students from Bradford, Sullivan, Tioga and Lycoming counties competing in nine categories and the first-place winners progressing to the state competition.
Jacob Lowe from Hughesville High School, who spent more than 150 hours coding to create his web page, said, "We all worked incredibly hard and, even though some of us did not win, it was an awesome experience in the long run."
While the judges carefully analyzed each individual project, students participated in various workshops in animation, movie making and sound recordings with some of the state's premiere instructors.
Other regional first-place winners who won trips to the state level were Alaina Mosso from Williamsport Area High School in Graphic Design; Breann English, Sloane Stradley and Madelin Beattie from Williamsport Area High School with a 3D project in Desktop Publishing; Asa Frank from Williamsport Area High School in Programming; Jacob Lowe, Rabeka Showers and Brandt Snyder from Hughesville High School in Informational Web Page; Jessica Culver from Hughesville High School in Animation; and Preston Barto from Hughesville High School with a Computer Fair Logo.
Two of the projects are on the Internet at energy.elsd.org and youtube.com with a search term of "Beyond Business Action."
VanHorn is a student writer from Hughesville High School.
