Published: December 02, 2008 08:20 am      

CHS boasts ‘Top Techs’

From Staff Reports



Corsicana High School automotive technology student Joe Hernandez led a group of four peers in a dominating performance recently at the Central Texas Shootout in Georgetown.

Hernandez won first place in three of the five disciplines, and received $1,500 in Snap on Tools gear and a Universal Technical Institute jacket.

Hernandez was joined by Ryan Alexander, Tyler Rios, Paul Salazar and C.J. Cantrell at the event held at Georgetown High School. The contest is divided into three skills levels — Intro, Intermediate and Advanced — and Corsicana students competed in the highest category. All five of the stations are graded on overall performance and the time it took to complete that specific station.

Hernandez won first place in Electrical Board, Scan Tool, Diagnosis and was the overall winner in the Advanced level.

This is Hernandez’s first year in the Auto Tech program. He plans to attend TSTC in the future to become an auto technician and later attend Pittsburg State University to earn a degree in automotive engineering.

“I’m good working with cars and building houses because I learned a lot from my dad in the past,” Hernandez said.

“We went out to Georgetown to represent Corsicana High School and we did our job. We learned everything from the best, Mr. Schmidt.”

Alexander finished second in the Supplemental Restraint System station.

Corsicana High School was named the best school and received a first place Central Texas Shootout trophy. The students are under the direction of Michael Schmidt, who is in his first year with the CHS program.

“It was an excellent learning experience,” Rios said. “It was also fun being able to compete with other students from other schools.”

The five stations were:

• Station 1 is a fifty question Automotive Service Excellence style test.

• At Station 2, students were asked to build an electrical circuit using a schematic and perform various checks.

• Students were asked to remove an airbag using service manual procedures in Station 3’s SRS test.

• Utilizing a Snapon Modis scan tool at Station 4, students were asked to hook up the scan tool properly, retrieve trouble codes and perform a cylinder contribution test.

• In Station 5’s Diagnosis test, students were asked to retrieve trouble codes and, using service manual diagnostic procedures, tell the judge what was wrong with the vehicle in question.

The automotive students at Corsicana High School will be busy in the coming months.

In mid-February, the Ford/AAA student auto skills state qualifying exam will be held. The state competition will be in Houston in late April. Nationals are set for Detroit, Mich., in late June.

The USA district contest is schedule for late February in Waco, followed by the state competition in mid-April. Nationals will be in Kansas City, Mo., in late June.