As graduation day approaches, we come to a realization that some of the most inspiring and intellectual students will be leaving West High forever to branch off onto their own paths and make history for themselves. But in our Wolf Pack home, to more than 2,000 students, there is an elite team of 45 scholars within this class of 2016 who have strived together, failed together and pushed each other to work harder so they could once more share a moment of pure accomplishment on graduation day. This elite team is no other than the Space and Engineering Academy (SEA) Class of 2016. This team of students is unlike any other Academy currently at West High. While dealing with stress from their academic and personal lives, each Academy student exudes confidence, character and charisma to come to school with a positive attitude ready to learn every day. As students in the Academy, they were expected to create timers, catapults, towers, bottle rockets, cargo boats, musical instruments and magnetic cars just their freshman year of high school without any class time. Throughout their next three years in the academy, projects became more daunting as they completed more intimidating projects such as: building a water filter out of a 2-liter soda bottle, creating solar cookers, using a 3D engineering design program to model bridges that they would later have to construct out of balsa wood, create a payload rocket and program a NXT robot to travel through a maze and return to start with no human interaction.

The projects aren’t the only things that are built within the Academy; there are also relationships built between the teachers and students that make the Academy special. When asked what his favorite memory was in the Academy Randy Moehnke, Head Coordinator of the Science Department said, “I’ve enjoyed a lot of things with this class [and] it’s too hard for me just to choose one moment.” The students are equally grateful to their teachers for all the help and support they have given them the past four years. Senior, Ervin Baccay said, “I will definitely miss Minky-poo the most… He tries just as much as the students, if not harder, to ensure that we graduate from the Academy,” continued Baccay. Jessica Huynh, Academy Vice President, thanks all the Academy teachers because they all played a part in shaping her into the leader she is today. When asked what or whom would be hardest to say goodbye to in this class of seniors Moehnke said, “It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to the officers because they’ve done a good job and it will also to be hard to say goodbye to Shrevin because he so enthusiastic and spirited.” All teachers wish the best for these seniors and hope they have a prosperous future.