LCHS Student & Teammates Win ALTEC Innovation Challenge

LaRue County High Schooler Emma Self put her problem-solving skills and creativity to the test engineering a solution on how to keep the public’s phones charged at local parks. The solution helped her and her team win $10,000.

Self competed in the ALTEC Innovation Challenge, an opportunity for area students to use science, math and engineering-based skills to solve real-world problems facing the community.

Self’s team created the “Power Bench,” a solution for when park-goers needed to charge their phones while out and about.

“It is a pedal generator connected to a table that allows people to generate kinetic energy to charge various devices,” Self explained.

Self, a LaRue County student, teamed up with Elizabethtown High School students to ideate, design, test, and present the project for the ALTEC Innovation Challenge.

Elizabethtown High School Engineering teacher Melissa Mills said projects like the Innovation Challenge give students hands-on experience to apply STEM lessons outside of the classroom.

“The students learn how to work in a team, build public speaking skills, and be creative in their thought processes on how to solve a real-world problem during the ALTEC Challenge,” Mills said. “These are skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. No matter what career choice they make, these are invaluable skills for them to obtain.”

LaRue County Schools Assistant Superintendent Amanda Reed said the partnership with EHS has been exceptionally helpful for both schools.

“Both LCHS and EHS are medium-sized high schools with only so much space, only so many teachers, and other resources,” she said. “Joining forces allows both schools the ability to offer more Career Technical Education (CTE) pathway programs to students together than either school can on our own.”

LaRue County High School and Elizabethtown High School are in their third year of partnership. Currently, LCHS sends 26 students to EHS for engineering and some Advanced Placement (AP) classes. Elizabethtown sends 31 students to LCHS for Agriculture, JROTC, and a few spots in the Digital Game Design pathway course.