Michael Sherburne has won the system control technology state championship five times and has placed second at nationals the past two years he does all of this without a coach.

“Mr. Snyder is our sponsor, but that’s it. He makes sure we have transportation, and makes sure we have the things we need, but everything else is self taught,” Sherburne said.

Steve Snyder is the sponsor for Sherburne and his team, and he agreed saying he deals with the maintenance of the team.

“I handle more of the transportation, making sure they are signed up, and making sure that the competitions are paid for,” Snyder said.

Snyder said the team does not need him as a coach, they teach themselves.

“I don’t coach them, they know way more than I do, they have taken this way above and beyond,” Snyder said.

System control technology is not an easy competition. There is a scenario, and then the team has to devise a solution. All with a time limit.

“We get a problem, and we have 15 minutes to look at that problem. After that we have two and a half hours to work on our solution, and how it is going to work,” Sherburne said.

The scenario the team receives is not an easy one, this year’s problem involved different sized boxes.

“This year we had to devise a sorting system which sorts different size boxes into two separate areas for loading, but this is all small scale,” Sherburne said.

The competition is all judged, so there is always the possibility of opinion being added into the competition.

“We are judged by three people at states who are all usually professionals at states, and at nationals there will be two judges,” Sherburne said.

According to Snyder, Sherburne has several qualities which help him to excel at the competition.

Snyder said, “First; he is just smart. He is very intelligent and it is just obvious that he is smart.” Snyder said. “He is also very hardworking and persistent, he was taught never to give up. Finally, he is a very logical thinker, and this kind of thinking just comes easily to him.”