Claymont students make good showing at PLTW
The eighth grade Project Lead the Way class taught by Vince Terakedis at Claymont Middle School takes their projects to the next level.
Claymont Middle School eighth grade students took top honors in their grade level at the annual 2025 Project Lead the Way competition at Buckeye Career Center.
Winning top honors were third-place participants Jaxson Patrino and Lukas Patterson, second place went to Bella Beitzel and Tru Smitley, and first place went to Aria Dotts and Augusta Hendrix.
In addition to the winning projects, CMS teacher Vince Terakedis was impressed with the other projects the class came up with on their own. Terakedis teaches PLTW classes from sixth grade through eighth grade. The classes focus on pre-engineering.
“Everything here is organic learning, very hands-on. We’re directly connected to the engineering processes and how to go about it,” Terakedis said.
He has taught the class for 17 years. “We expose them to everything from modeling, design, space and flight, and robotics,” he said.
The annual Project Lead the Way competition, supported by Allied Machine and Engineering, is judged by engineers.
“They were not teachers. They were actual engineers for companies,” Terakedis said. “It’s a good feeling to see that real engineers are seeing what the young students are doing.”
Terakedis’ students created projects that solved a problem.
“They had to solve either an everyday problem, natural disasters or something that they wanted to see done better,” Terakedis said. “Those are the projects that we took and we won with.”
Project Lead the Way is a national program that exposes students to engineering and engineering processes.
“We design stuff on the computers. We 3D print. We do everything from building homes to robotics to electricity,” Terakedis said.
The students work on different concepts of engineering throughout the year with students working in groups or with partners, increasing their team-building abilities. Many times, when designing their projects, students will cover all aspects of the engineering process.
The team of Jaxson Patrino and Lukas Patterson explained their project.
“We had an electric bow retractor, which was never made before, and it helps hunters pull their bow up to their tree stand,” Patrino said.
The project solved the problem that a family member with an injured shoulder was having pulling their bow into the stand. The process isn’t always easy.
“We wanted an easy way to pull (the bow) up because it always clanks around and stuff. It was more efficient,” Lukas Patterson said.
The judges liked their bow retractor project and said it was a good idea.
“They liked how we made it from scrap. I think that was a big thing because a lot of the other people had kits that they made, and they just followed instructions,” Patrino said. “We made ours from scrap and did it completely on our own. The judges noticed that.”
The students plan to put in some extra time to improve their project.
“We only had two weeks to whip this thing up,” Patrino said.
Bella Beitzel and Tru Smitley found a solution to practicing volleyball on your own by creating a type of net project that blocks your shot.
“We made it so you can go back and forth and hit in different positions. It follows you to block the ball when you hit it,” Beitzel said.
The students decided it would be better to practice hitting when there is something that will block your shot.
“You don’t need anybody else to use it. You can just use it by yourself,” Smitley said.
The judges deemed their project a very useful idea.
Aria Dotts and Augusta Hendrix took the top honors with their project, the chicken disinfector, which addressed a recent problem.
“Essentially, what it did was it sprayed a mist of disinfectant on chickens that would disinfect them for avian influenza since that’s a big problem,” Dotts said. “We had sensors that would sense the chicken coming, and it would then cause a motor to spin, sliding a piece of wood to then let out a mist onto the chickens.”
The judges thought the project was very practical and a big help to the chicken population.
Though only the top three projects can go to the competition at BCC, Terakedis was impressed with all the projects his students created. The fact that they do not use kits takes their projects to the next level.
“There wasn’t one of them that I thought wouldn’t do well in competition,” Terakedis said.