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Plano ISD Hosts ‘National Signing Day' for Academics

Plano Academy High School hosted its first "national signing day" Wednesday – but instead of highlighting athletes committing to college teams, the focus was on seniors committed to science, math and engineering majors.

Ten seniors from Plano Academy and Plano Senior High School declared their commitment to colleges, including Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, the University of Texas at Austin and Iowa State University.

The students are part of the FIRST Robotics team, in which they build a robot from scratch and compete with other teams from around the globe.

Some of their declared majors include biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science.

"You have people who play football, basketball. Some of them go professional, some do not. All of our kids go professional," said coach Gary Sullivan, head of the Chain Robotics team. "All of them are going to college to do this, all of them are going to get a job doing this."

Senior Nick Goodman signed his name and announced his plans to attend the Colorado School of Mines to major in mechanical engineering.

"We kind of decided that we wanted to give it the same type of credit the other athletes do because we're athletes, but like, athletes of the mind," Goodman said. "We like to consider it a sport also."

FIRST Robotics National Signing Day is a nationwide event, meant to highlight STEM students and their achievements.

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