Cove High students go high tech at state conference

Special to Leader-Press 

Jarred Bruns got out of his comfort zone and it paid strong dividends as he took home top honors along with 19 other Copperas Cove High School students in the Technology Student Association State Conference in Waco.  

Bruns was the first place winner for video editing and explained his motivation for his project and the struggles he faced with Chroma Key, a software to remove the green screen, a feature often used in video editing, and isolate footage.

“I decided to do video editing with the Chroma Key because I wanted to challenge myself and do something that I was not comfortable doing and had never done before,” Bruns said. “There were many challenges that came with this project. First off, I’m camera shy and had to do multiple takes. Secondly, I had to rerecord a couple of times because of some unwanted noise that I could not edit out.”

Competing in various categories including wood manufacturing, photography, video editing, computer imaging, and desktop publishing, students displayed creativity, attention to detail, and precision in the design and completion stage of producing their projects, said teacher Lan Carter. With 19 students competing, 23 awards were garnered in the state competition.

Alex Wren placed second with his creation of digital art to sell a specific product. 

“I chose to create a soup label for my TSA Competition project because I find it interesting to present and advertise products,” Wren said. “I faced a few challenges when creating a pleasing gradient for the background and what proper font to use for the text.”

Luke Avritt completely swept away the competition in his category capturing both first and second places in the desktop publishing category by something that can be used in everyday life.  

“I drew inspiration for the invitation from a normal birthday card invitation,” Avritt said. “The greeting card was created from inspiration gathered from a regular holiday greeting card.” 

Qualifying students will advance to the national TSA conference June 21-25 in Orlando, Florida.