A team of students from Beaufort High School earned statewide honors in the prestigious 2016 Project Lead the Way South Carolina State Engineering Championship held at the University of South Carolina Engineering Center.

Beaufort High’s Principles of Engineering team won Best Innovation and also Best in Competition, beating a number of high-profile teams from around the state including Charleston’s Wando High, Columbia’s Dutch Fork High, Charleston’s Academic Magnet High and Charleston’s Charter School for Math and Science.

Working in a timed competition, the Beaufort High team – Jackie Kim, Lucas Cato and Anna Fosberry – designed, built and tested a device to feed a dinosaur.  The device featured a remote release on the end of a support arm, all cantilevered off the edge of a table top.

“Beaufort High has a well-deserved reputation for producing some of South Carolina’s best young engineering students,” said Superintendent Jeff Moss.  “Year in and year out, their teams are simply outstanding.”

Teams at the Columbia competition were monitored by USC engineering professors as they worked, and upper-classmen engineering students conducted interviews with team members.  Teams were scored based on their performances and personal interviews.

Beaufort High has participated in the state competition the last six years, winning three state championships and one state runner-up title.  Two members of this year’s championship team – Kim and Cato – were also part of the 2015 State Engineering Champion Introduction to Engineering Design team.

Beaufort High’s team was coached by teacher Jim Wilkin.