Normal Community Tech Dept

For the second year in a row, we’re proud to announce Normal Community High School has been named a PLTW 2025-26 Distinguished School for their commitment to increasing student access, engagement, and achievement in their PLTW Computer Science and Engineering programs.

Our students have excelled at problem solving, teamwork, and content knowledge by having several students score in the top 1% on the PLTW National Assessment in both Computer Science and Engineering.

March madness in May??? Our intro to metal students had fun seeing who was the best stick welder in each of their classes on our final week of regular classes. The last person standing from each class received a golden electrode and bragging rights for the summer!

At the KidWind Worlds Championships in Madison, Wisconsin, NCHS STEM Capstone students continue to exhibit unwavering dedication. Two NCHS teams are competing against 125 international wind turbine teams from various locations, including Taiwan, China, Mexico, and nearly every U.S. state, including Alaska. The assessment criteria comprise turbine power generation efficiency across four distinct wind tunnel settings, proficiency in two impromptu problem-solving exercises, performance on a written examination, and the team's ability to effectively present their project in a 20-minute presentation. Let’s go Liam, Joel, Sam and Leon.

Our Trades presentations finished strong with Stark Excavating. Kristin and Ryan shared with our students how to join different trades, go to specific schools, and even join their company. Then our students had the opportunity to check out two pieces of heavy equipment. Our stem capstone students had lots of questions about how the graders GPS system worked. Thank you Stark Excavating for donating your time and machines!

Today's STEM Capstone learning experience focused on investigating the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, where we designed and operated ROVs in a pool setting to simulate the actual search operations.

Way to go!!!!

Day 4 of our trades week continued today with our students getting the chance to learn about becoming a carpenter. Our guest speaker, Brandon, taught our students how to join the local carpenters union and then gave our students some hands-on experiences as well. Students worked with different laser levels and framed with some metal studs!

Here's to Tommy Wade, recipient of the 2026 Technology Engineering Education Department award, and all the other winners who are paving the way with their innovative spirit and dedication - especially those currently taking TEE classes!!!!!

We had a great visit from Patrick Wilmington from Caterpillar Inc he is the Program Coordinator of Global Dealer Learning. He talked with our Introduction to Metals and Woods classes about the opportunities at Cat in the Think Big program. We will also be joining Patrick at SkillsUSA in Peoria to learn about how Unit 5 can participate next year. We are very excited about the opportunity. Hands - On Minds - On with SkillsUSA and Caterpillar!!!

The Illinois Technology Student Association State Conference at the Chateau in Bloomington proved to be a tremendous success for the 30 students from the NCHS TSA Chapter, which accumulated numerous awards across various categories over a span of two days. The chapter's achievements include: Tech Bowl, 2nd place; Tech Issues, 1st place; Engineering Design, 3rd place; Bridge Design, 1st place; Chapter Team, 3rd place; Problem Solving, 1st and 3rd places.