Future Leaders Winner Jack Armstrong Racing Into A Future In Automation
LITTLETON, Colo. (CBS4) – Every month during the school year, CBS4, along with its partner at PDC Energy, honors a high school student who excels in science, technology, engineering or math, STEM. The Future Leaders winner gets $1,000, and a profile on CBS4 News.
The March winner is Jack Armstrong, a senior at STEM School Highlands Ranch, but he's already getting a jump on his college career. Armstrong is enrolled in the Motors and Controls Class at Arapahoe Community College.
"I've been taking classes in wiring and how to read a blueprint of wiring, and how to set up a circuit that way," he explained. "I've been taking classes focusing around automation, and how the different sensors communicate with each other to make a functioning system, in like an assembly line. I've been taking classes on motors and how to incorporate the motors into both of those."
The classes are a part of ACC's Robotics & Automation Technology degree program.
"It's basically a field where they're teaching people to work in the robotics future. Because as everything is progressing, everything is being made by robots. There are very, very few hand assembly plants at this point, but somebody still needs to make the robots," he said.
Armstrong takes these classes as part of his studies at STEM School Highlands Ranch.
"I'm going to technically be a freshman but I'll have enough credits that I'll be going in as a sophomore. So I'll have one less year of college to pay for, and that's awesome for me," Armstrong said.
His passion for engineering was fueled by participating in the Junior Space Entrepreneurship Program, sponsored by Lockheed Martin.
"My team did a wheel that would basically form out into claws if it got stuck. We 3D printed it, and designed it. And on the presentation, they decided that ours was most viable for the future was kind of cool. I was proud of our team for that," he explained.
He also has another passion of which he's proud.
"I'm a big car nerd, and I love racing," he told CBS4's Ashton Altieri
"I have to ask you, that huge trophy on the shelf behind you, is that from racing?" Altieri asked.
"Yep," Armstrong replied. "I was the 2019 class champion from Colorado so that's what that trophy is."
As Armstrong heads off to college next school year, he hopes to combine his love of racing and his passion for engineering at Oregon Institute of Technology.
LINK: Nominate a Future Leaders Candidate
CBS4 and PDC Energy are accepting nominations for our Future Leaders award until April 22, 2022.