Culinary Champions: Wetzel County Tech Center wins state competition
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CHARLESTON - It has become apparent that the Wetzel County Technical Education Center, under the guidance of Director J.C. Kimble and his award-winning staff, has rapidly become well-known name among state's schools when it comes to competition.
For the last five years, annual competitions have been held with the designated goal of helping to motivate and inspire students. This year, nine schools entered the West Virginia Department of Education's Culineering Challenge, hosted by the department's Office of Career Technical Education at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The students competed on two contest goals. The first: Design and build a type of billboard that promotes a state park, chosen for each team by a random drawing. The catch: The sign must be designed and created using only edible food materials.
The students from Wetzel County took the challenge to heart, and set about building a sign that, when judged in Charleston, won first place. The sign was constructed using broccoli as trees, cake icing to create snow and pretzels to build structures. Other foodstuffs were incorporated to complete the winning design.
The second part of the competition was the construction of a vehicle built almost entirely out of edible food. Two small strips of light plywood were allowed to be used as sides. Students from the culinary class of Chef Gary Cardill and engineering students from Rex Rush's graphic design and engineering class made up the team.
The group of five students designed a 12-inch-wide, 20-inch-long and 18-inch-high Jeep to be used in the competition test. The goal was to design a vehicle that could roll down an incline with its passenger, a chocolate egg, and stop abruptly at a barrier at the bottom, with the egg remaining intact.
To know the precise impact force on the eggs, an accelerometer was used to measure G-force at time of impact.
Design and research were done at the Wetzel career center. The vehicle had to be constructed in Charleston by the students. Instructors were only allowed 30 minutes out of the 10-hour preparation time to talk with the students.
The Wetzel County Jeep rolled down the ramp and crashed into the barrier with an impact force of 1.01 Gs. The chocolate egg survived with no injuries, rolling away unharmed to be eaten later. Other entries were 1.6 and 1.8Gs. A couple others hit the barrier with a G force of 21.0Gs.
When the judges finished their reviews of the competitors, they decided that Wetzel County won. In fact, Wetzel County finished the competition winning both categories.
This is the second year in a row the Wetzel Tech Center has won the Title. The winning team called themselves, "The Crash Test Coyotes." Team members from Magnolia were Kyrin Nice, Harmony Gross, Luke Stillwagner and Aly Stillwagner. The fifth member of the team was from Tyler Consolidated High School, Jaylin Johnson.