Okotoks has its fingerprints all over Team Alberta at the upcoming Skills Canada Nationals.
Foothills Composite/Alberta High School of Fine Arts students had a field day at Alberta’s Provincial Skills Canada Competition in Edmonton with four students advancing to nationals and 15 medals/awards won at the May 8-9 event.
“It felt very unreal, and I still haven’t processed it,” said Camilla Tran, gold medallist in the architecture tech event. “It means a lot, my mom had to convince me to go (to nationals) at first because I don’t really like going out of my comfort zone and we’re going to Quebec.
“But I am very happy to have this opportunity and I’m very excited.”
Experience played for the Grade 12 student in her second provincial opportunity, particularly when it comes to the crucial time management component.
“Going into it this year was much easier,” she said. “I knew what to expect and how to manage my time and knew to prioritize more of the technical aspects, getting the measurements they provided us exact and then just working on making my annotations very detailed.”
Earning their way onto Team Alberta as provincial champions is a quartet of seniors: Tran, Tom Wyzykoski (electronics) along with the dynamic duo of Kiyan Karimaghaei and Wynn Brown (video production).
This was the third trip to the provincial competition in as many years for Wyzykoski, the first of which was held virtually.
“I did know what to expect, a little bit, but it does change from year to year,” he said. “The problems you have to solve, while you’re using the same tools, they do change.”
The electronics competition was broken down into four sections: theory, breadboarding, circuit soldering and making a circuit.
“I’m happy, but when you’re in high school it’s stressful because you do have other classes,” he added. “I had my calc AP test (this week) and I’m also part of advanced acting so now I finally get to focus on nationals which is nice.
“It will be fun to go to Quebec with people I know and people I’m sure I’ll get to know.”
In video production, Karimaghaei and Brown made the most of a challenging video prompt where the 16 competing teams were tasked with outlining sustainability in the trades.
“The main reason why we won is the message in our video,” Karimaghaei said. “I think a lot of the other groups missed out on that, they were showing how trades are good for the environment instead of showing how trades are leading the way towards that.
“We didn’t completely ignore waste and bad chemicals, we still spoke about oil, but showed how oil is bring recycled.”
Brown said many of the other competitors didn’t have the opportunity to go through regionals and learn from the experience, adding the Foothills students are fortunate to have the guidance of new media teacher Ben Stevens.
“I’m pretty happy that we got to provincial (gold) because at provincials we get a scholarship,” Brown said. “If we don’t win at nationals, we got there and that’s enough for me.”
Theo van Gogh, a Grade 12 student, also took home the gold in joinery, a competition which isn’t offered at the national level.
“I’m super pumped, I think it was a really good opportunity to go out and experience what some of the different trades look like, see what joinery looks like,” he said.
“This was the first time I’ve been. I got to see the project ahead of time, so it was building the project once and then practising the joints, just repetition.
“I sit down the first 10, 20 minutes going over the plans and making sure I got my head fully wrapped around it and going through the math and making sure I got my measurements dead on and I had a plan of attack for the project.”
The other medallists are: Tyler Ulrich, silver in architecture tech; Austin Manning and Jackson Cadier, silver in robotics; Abby Keeler, silver in photography; Gilbert Perkins and Alex Evans, bronze in 3D animation; Jacy White, bronze in cabinet making; Lucian VonRaven, bronze in electrical installation.
In addition, the team of Weston Byerley and Wenbin Lu won the safety award in robotics.
A total of 30 students from FCHS/AHSFA competed at the provincial event.
The Skills Canada National Competition is held May 30-31 in Quebec City.
