UC Skoolies

12/02/2025

Thank you to the Union City IN/OH Rotary Club for the opportunity to talk about our recent trip.

At the November 18th meeting of the Union City Rotary Club, Blake Clevenger of UC Sr. HS and his "Skoolies" group spoke about their trip to the Southeast US to visit battleships around Charleston, SC. They did research for their robotic battleship project. Pictured are the Skoolies with advisor Blake Clevenger on the far right.

10/10/2025

Home safe! Great trip. Thanks for following along.

10/10/2025

Early start with some more challenging roads making for a rough start. Visited the Vivacity warehouse to see where are Chromebooks come from and get repaired. Spent the rest of the day driving. After some wrong turns and spooky backroads in the dark we landed in southern Ohio. Played some games and enjoyed our last night.

10/09/2025

Woke up this morning at Myrtle Beach State Park campground and walked down to the beach to see the sunrise. After an hour of swimming in the waves we went to get breakfast. Most of us couldn't choose and may have ordered two entrees. A few hours later we got off the bus at the USS Yorktown in Charleston. We toured the USS Laffey first, The ship that wouldn't die" then spent the next 3 hours in the Yorktown a WW2 Aircraft Carrier. It was much bigger than the other ships but we saw many similar types of hardware being from the same time period. We also discovered the standard crew complement was slightly larger than the population of Union City. After finishing exploring we turned the bus towards home and ended the night near Charlotte.

10/08/2025

Woke on Ocracoke Island that morning. Some of us went for a beach run before sunrise. Somehow we lost a towel and slides. We departed and boarded the cedar Island ferry for a 2.5 hour cruise to the main land. From there we went to Wilmington to see the USS North Carolina. The battleship and it's tour was excellent. And we got some great pictures. It felt better maintained and laid out than the Wisconsin From there we went to Myrtle Beach, stopped for some souvenirs and landed for the night at Myrtle Beach State Park campground.

10/07/2025

Left early following the same method as before, I wake up early and drive while everyone sleeps. We drove for about 3 hours before we woke everyone up to see us go through a tunnel under the ocean. After some interesting navigation we got to the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia. It took a while to to find parking, a construction lot. 15 minutes walk away. The battleship was very interesting and we discovered we were too tall. We got a ton of pictures for research. Got back on the bus and we were off to the Outer Banks. It was pretty cool to see water on both sides of the bus as were were driving. We took there ferry from Hatteras Ocracoke ferry to stay on Ocracoke Island for the night. Great day overall.

10/06/2025

We've been quiet for a while now but we have been working on Operation Stormtide. Today 2 of the original Skoolies departed from UC at 7 am on a journey to see some Americas finest naval vessels. Today we made it as far as Natural Bridge Virginia. Great start to the trip, the bus ran great and the new crew are shaping up well. We got the chance to hike at Natural Bridge. Ready to see Battleships tomorrow.