LEAD Academy Seniors have been working on their critical projects since the beginning of the school year. As they started to develop their ideas, the stress became a heavy weight on each students’ shoulders. Despite the high amount of stress of building the prototype of their invention, they had help from professionals and received feedback to improve on the prototype.

These senior students have spent a vast amount of time at the beginning of the school year finding important information about what they wanted to invent. They had to perform a great amount of research on the internet to make sure that their idea for an invention wasn’t already duplicated. This project is important to the seniors of the LEAD Academy because it takes a large toll on grades; if it is not done, it would significantly affect both semesters’ records.

Antonio Gomez, a senior student in the LEAD Academy, comments,”At the beginning of the school year, my classmates and I were given this task to come up with an invention to build throughout the year and to be prepared to present it to professional engineers. We received our first cut-off for revisions by different professionals early December. During the first presentation, we were received constructive criticism on how to better our prototype, the ‘Trap-A-Fruit’, which will allow farmers to cut down fruits from its stem from a height distance much faster.”

George Lopez, another senior student in the LEAD Academy comments, “My team and I were anxious but not nervous to present our prototype, ‘The Iron Armoring’ which will prevent less damage to your fingers while hammering a nail, to the professional engineers because we were ready and ready to receive any feedback to improve our prototype. We dedicated our time during school hours, during off-campus hours and spent many late nights doing research to reach our goal of completing this project to astound the professional engineers. Throughout the time building this prototype, we had to do a lot of heavy research but every month we did different research to figure out what was missing in our prototype.”

Many of these courageous senior students were nervous, excited and terrified before entering the room to present their prototype but after entering the atmosphere of the room where the professional engineers were, they felt very confident and comfortable to start a professional presentation to them. While one group was presenting their prototype, the other groups were explaining their projects to the underclassmen from different engineering classes. The seniors were discussing how much time and research they will have to spend on and dedicate to when completing the exact project when they reach their senior year in the academy.

Senior Tyler Hit comments,”I spent 4 years in this academy and it’s been an amazing 4 years for me because I got to experience years of different engineering techniques that made me pursue a path to accomplish an engineering major in college. I believe that this academy gives students a chance to experience engineering in the field and allows students that want to pursue a career in engineering a chance to have the experience and knowledge to continue in college. I think that the LEAD Academy gave my classmates and me the opportunity to get an experience on how it’s like to be a real inventor in the world and pitching our ideas to real professionals.”