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Carson Middle School Preserves student-built RC car course ‘The Palindrome’
Schools in Carson City have been in session for three days now, but one student at Carson Middle School is still clinging to some high points from summer break.
For the past several months, Seth Donnelly, a seventh grader at Carson Middle School, has spent every waking hour building, reconstructing and adding new features to a dirt structure and race track for his remote control (RC) car. The makeshift, impromptu play area is equipped with ramps, berms, greenery, wooden garages, monster jumps and more. But with schools starting again and students heading back to classes this week, Seth was concerned his hard work would likely be demolished.
As part of the back-to-school effort, Carson City School District’s grounds workers do their very best to make a good first impression by ensuring campus grounds are nice and neatly kept at the start and throughout the school year. This year, when workers talked about cleaning up one area in an employee parking lot at Carson Middle School, there was an exception made. Seth’s area would be preserved.
“Some of the guys asked me if they should clean out the area that was harmlessly acquired and developed as a RC track,” said Virgil Berry, director of operations for the Carson City School District. “They were planning on clearing the space to better accommodate for parking and snow accumulation as we get closer to winter. But after observing the effort and constructive progression of the project, I said ‘No way.’ This kid has built something pretty awesome. He has spent most of the summer manicuring the area. We are leaving it as it is.”
And when the first school bell rang Monday morning, Seth’s RC track, on the corner of West Musser Street and North Richmond Avenue in Carson City, persisted in the exact same condition it was when his hands and his RC car last touched it.
“In a time where some students at that age exhibit more destructive and defacing behaviors, it is reassuring to see one be creative and constructive,” Berry continued. “We need to encourage more kids to work with their hands, take things apart, put things back together and not be afraid to get dirty every now and then.”
So let it be said, students in Carson City are not only strengthening their academic and curricular prowess, but they are also stimulating an engineering mindset.