Author name: Laura Taylor

Authentic Learning, Health Science

Element 6 and IATV Partner with Champion’s Place

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At Innovation Academy, health care students in Element Six have been busy this year. In a unique, project based learning course, students combined the worlds of narrative art and medical practice. Over two semesters, students studied fundamentals of Patient Care and Allied Health while reading personal essays from medical professionals and patients. They have written their own personal essays on a time in which they, or someone they love, needed medical care. Students have also read and studied profile essays in which authors depicted medical professionals and patients in the midst of injury, care, and recovery. Their work is based on Anton Chekhov’s stories and sketches. In 1888, Chekhov laid out six elements of an effective story; he highlighted objectivity, brevity, and originality among others. For the sixth element, Chekhov named compassion. Through the years, close readers, medical professionals, medical schools, and English teachers far and wide have noted how closely these elements track the same best practices of nurses, doctors, and caregivers. Champions Place, located in Roswell, is a groundbreaking residential facility designed for adults with disabilities. Through cutting-edge adaptive technology, purposeful architecture, and the presence of compassionate caregivers, it empowers residents to lead independent, fulfilled lives. Born from the dreams of parents supporting the Team Titans — a wheelchair sports team in Metro Atlanta — Champions Place brings a bold vision to life: a future where disabled adults thrive in a nurturing community. For over two years, IA students have partnered with Champions Place. From fundraising for a sports wheelchair in 2024 to volunteering at scrimmages and visiting Champions Place, the students of IA pathways and clubs have lent a hand. This year students in Element Six, a combined Health Care and English course, and IA’s AVTF team have interviewed residents as well as Team Titan members for profile stories. These stories now live here. This partnership is rooted in the memory and legacy of Garrett Couch, who was a founding member of Champions Place and a founding faculty member at Innovation Academy. Emma Mundahl, an IA senior, was in Mr. Couch’s math class during her freshman year. She fondly remembered Mr. Couch, saying “Being a teacher was his natural fit. Helping people was his gift. I saw this firsthand as a student at Innovation Academy. He was a great listener. He loved seeing the light bulbs go off in his students’ heads and helping those pieces to click. He was a source of inspiration and encouragement to each of his students, and we cared for him just as he cared for us.” This year we are proud to support the Capital Campaign as Champions Place seeks to expand and open their doors to serve more residents. Your support of this campaign allows for stories like the ones you will find here. And for the stories yet to come.

Spotlight

Student Spotlight: Kindness Mbaimbai

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If you’ve ever walked behind the school, you may have seen two large structures. One of those structures is a greenhouse, but the other is the star of this article– a biodome! The project lead of IA’s biodome, Kindness Mbaimbai (11th, Healthcare), described a biodome as a self-sufficient human-made environment.

Authentic Learning, Engineering

Vizion Racing Builds a Formula Car from Scratch 

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By: Kaelyn Fu  Ten brilliant students – Kyle Huryn, Ronak Nambiar, Alexey Pyekh, Farhan Shaikh, Connor Kassey, John Collins, Siddharth Chintalapalli, Bennett Tuck, Nikolas Kazachkov, and Sakina Chougle – banded together to form Vizion Racing, the first ever high school motorsports team. These dedicated students, motivated by their deep passions in engineering, decided to challenge themselves by building a formula style car with no prior experience, learning after each advancement how to do the next step and tackle setbacks.   These students were first introduced to motorsports last summer, when they were given the opportunity to work on a go-kart that the class of 2025 seniors were building. They successfully repaired the go-kart together and enjoyed the process so much that they wanted to start their own project in motorsports; building a formula car from scratch was the perfect next challenge.   Vizion Racing regularly documents their daily progress and their successes on their Instagram page: @vizion_racing. They are rapidly gaining traction and popularity online, growing to have more than 7000 people following their journey.   Currently, the team has made significant progress on building the car. So far, they have finished assembling the chassis, which is the metal cage that holds the engine, a radiator (which uses cool air to cool the engine), a 3D-printed fuel tank, and the suspension (which are the springs that allow the car to absorb impact). They are still finishing the attachment of electrical systems and wheels.   Overall, the team is the proudest of their successes and the progress they made on the car. As Alexey Pyekh, the Project Engineer, stated, “We never expected to get this far. We’re really proud of the work we put in, from the amount of effort it took, to the learning. It’s been so much fun just working on something that we like to do.”   Check out their website: vizionracing.com and their GoFundMe: gofund.me/0bed7472 

Engineering, Student Stories

IA Robotics Takes On Worlds!

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by: Samanyu Bhupalam After dominating regional games, IA’s Robotics got to go to Worlds, an international competition with 600 teams from 18 different countries, drawing over 30 thousand attendees for the high school division. IA had tough competition, with multiple champions from previous years in the same bracket. Despite going 4-6 in the competition, the team took each loss as an opportunity to learn rather than a setback. Raj Chavda (12th, engineering) explained that throughout the competition, IA students were sent out to watch games in other brackets and talk to teams to learn about their workflow and techniques that they used to become successful. He also talked about all the different designs of robots from other teams and how creative they were. While IA didn’t win worlds this year, Raj was pleased with how far the team has come, especially after a challenging 2024 season. Just like IA itself, Robotics constantly changes and improves with new ideas and experiences year after year.

Announcements

Cooper Carry Sponsors Outdoor Learning Space

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Cooper Carry, the architectural firm who designed IA, is continuing its commitment to our campus by sponsoring the design and development of an outdoor learning space. Sophia Tarkhan, a principal K-12 architect, is leading the effort. She and two other architects are working with a group of Engineering students to design and develop plans for the space.

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