Among the more than 70 competitions at last week’s SkillsUSA Missouri State Conference at State Tech were Auto Collision and robotics.

Three State Tech students — Shiann Goon, Hunter Slavings, and Sean Hight — took part in the automotive collision competition.

“They have to perform a series of welds, fix a tear and build a tab for plastic repair; they’ll have to fix three dents inside a fender, and then there will be a measuring portion as well for understanding measurements on a chassis,” said State Tech Auto Collision Instructor Christian Record. “Hunter is doing the refinishing competition. He’s going to have to tape off a door and fender on a car; prepare a panel with a primer corner for paint, and then go in the paint booth and actually seal and blend the color and reclear coat and then have to do a color variant match against the door as well.”

Record said he had confidence in his students’ abilities and was proud of the work they were doing.

“I think they are going to do well,” said Record. “They’ve put in a lot of practice and have done really well with everything involved with it. It’s just a matter of whether they can keep their nerves under control and succeed at this point.”

Goon, a first-year Automotive Collision Technology student at State Tech, finished second in the Collision Repair Technology contest.

“I volunteered to be a part of the competition,” said Goon. “He (Record) kind of pressured me into it but I definitely wanted to do it before he talked to me.”

Goon added that she felt confident in her work and that was largely due to the quality of education she had received at State Tech.

“I think it’s going smoothly so far,” she said. “I think I’m doing good. I feel like I have a pretty good chance. I recommend coming to this school. Christian has a lot of fun activities outside of school that we do as a class and he’s always pushing us to be the best we can be. He really tries to bring the second-year and first-year classes together. The second-years help us out a lot and I am hoping to be one of those helping out the first-year class next year.” 

Slavings, a first-year Automotive Collision Technology student, earned second place in the Automotive Refinishing Technology contest.

“I never got to participate in this in high school so it’s been a big learning experience and it’s been pretty fun so far,” Slavings said. “I’m looking forward to getting through it because it’s been stressful but I’m having a lot of fun. I feel pretty good so far about my work.”

Hight won the Collision Repair Technology contest.

In the Robotics: Urban Search and Rescue Challenge, two-person teams had to build their robots before the event and then remotely operate them through a simulated ordnances challenge course where they had to locate, secure, and properly dispose of them.

Nichols Career Center students Hobert Frohman, David Nichols, Blake Roettgen, Tyler Schobey, Nikolas Strawderman, and Brendan Walters took part in the competition.

Strawderman said he felt good about the competition while Walters joked that he felt, “Not the best but not the worst.”

“I think this is going to be a good learning experience,” Nichols added.

SkillsUSA, founded in 1965, is dedicated to ensuring that America has high-quality workers. There are more than 350,000 students and advisors that join the national education nonprofit association each year.

This conference offered students the chance to showcase the skills they have learned through career and technical education (CTE) programs and boasted more than 70 competitions that highlighted the practical applications of the knowledge received through these programs. 

Winners from the 2022 Missouri SkillsUSA Leadership and Skills Conference will represent Missouri at the annual National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta, Ga., later this year.

This is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic the event has been held in person.