Elizabethtown High School team wins STEM competition

Seven teams representing area schools on Thursday competed in Altec’s fifth-annual Innovation Challenge, an event which the company says “encourages creativity and critical thinking by combining science, technology, engineering, and math in a student-driven, project based competition.” The teams were tasked with developing solutions for real-world problems, with the winning team awarded $10,000 to implement their project in the spring of 2025.

A team of Elizabethtown High School students took home the top prize for their proposal to introduce a state-of-the-art irrigation system and greenhouse at the United Way of Central Kentucky’s Community Garden. The students on the winning team are Johnathan Hall, Landen Childress, Cedric Dennis, Cooper Carmen, and Landen Brown-Cline.

“They have worked every single day since August on this, and so today they were rewarded with their hard work and dedication to this problem in our community, and today they’ve won the funding to solve this with their irrigation system that they have completely designed themselves, and I could not be more proud and happy for them,” said EHS faculty sponsor Missy Mills.

Altec Elizabethtown General Manager Daniel Flory says the Innovation Challenge helps students grow while encouraging growth in the community.

“As the students work through this, they’re learning a lot of new skills,” Flory said. “Public presentation, budgeting, project timelines, also just how to use the whole STEM package, so they’re creating an idea, they’re formulating it, and we like to give students that ability to reach out into that and to have that in their toolbox for later in life and whatever path they choose in the future.”

Educators interested in learning more about the Altec Innovation Challenge can learn more by emailing etowninnovationchallenge@altec.com.