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ECTC robotics team performs well at national championship

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Elizabethtown Community and Technical College is celebrating the accomplishments of four students that recently competed in a national robotics competition. 

Team NUKE participated in the Vex Robotics World Championship in Dallas, the eighth consecutive year ECTC students have competed at the event.

Vex U provides students with the chance to design, build, and program robots, which helps the students develop technical and soft skills. Teams work on their robots and compete in year-round events which culminate at the world championship.

Team NUKE competed in nine qualifying matches with teams from around the world, placing seventh in their division. The team recorded the highest individual match score of the tournament when they defeated Mississippi State 222 to 70. The team ultimately fell in the division finals to the University of Kentucky, which was led by a former member of Team NUKE.

The members of Team NUKE are students in ECTC’s Engineering and Electronics Technology program. Contact Marty Sutherland at ECTC to learn more.

Team nuke consisted of ECTC students Jeffrey Stewart, David Roche-Meléndez, Tanner Blake, and Joshua Wisniewski, along with five students from Northern Kentucky University.

LaRue County accident leaves one dead, two injured

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The Kentucky State Police is investigating a fatal accident that occurred in LaRue County Sunday evening.

At approximately 6:30 p.m. on May 5, KSP Post Four troopers were requested by LaRue County Dispatch to assist in investigating a single-vehicle collision at the 6000 block of KY 61/Greensburg Road.

The KSP says the preliminary investigation indicates that 59-year-old Bobby D. Sexton of Magnolia was driving south on KY 61 in a pickup truck when for unknown reasons he drove onto the shoulder of the roadway before overcorrecting. The vehicle overturned several times.

Sexton was pronounced dead at the scene by the LaRue County Coroner’s Office. Two passengers in the vehicle, one an adult and one a child, sustained life-threatening injuries in the crash. The adult passenger was flown to the University of Louisville Hospital, and the child was flown to Norton Children’s Hospital.

The KSP’s investigation into the crash is ongoing.

One dead, one injured in WKP crash

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One person is dead and another seriously injured following an accident on the Western Kentucky Parkway in Hardin County.

“On Sunday, May 5 at approximately 10:48 p.m. the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office responded to the 126 mile marker on the WK Parkway for a reported motor vehicle accident.” said Hardin County Sheriff John Ward. 

Upon the arrival of deputies, both of the involved vehicles were engulfed in flames.

“The operator of unit one – Roger B. Wilson, age 38, of Elizabethtown – was pronounced dead at the scene of the Hardin County Coroner,” Ward said. “The operator of unit two was transported by helicopter to the University of Louisville Hospital with life-threatening injuries.”

The Hardin County Sheriff’s Office’s Accident Reconstruction Team’s investigation into the accident is ongoing. The Western Kentucky Parkway was closed in both directions for several hours after the accident.

KY From Above offers accessible map views of the commonwealth

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The Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet says Kentucky is the first state in the country to capture side and angle view photography of its entire geography from the sky.

Pilots working for contractor NV5 flew 2,600 flight lines over 117,000 miles to capture images of more than 40,000 square miles of Kentucky’s cities, towns, farms, and natural areas to create the KY From Above program.

The program was established in 2010 by the Kentucky Geographic Information Advisory Council with the mission of creating access to geographic information in the state by providing detailed elevation data and aerial photography at no cost to Kentuckians. The accuracy and clarity of the images captured provides context for hundreds of map layers used by state and local government agencies. 

The state also says the program will improve public safety as first responders will be able to use it to help on accident responses and search and rescue missions, and emergency management leaders will be able to use the program when assessing damage after a disaster.

You can access the program by visiting www.kyfromabove.ky.gov.

Highway fatalities up in Kentucky in 2023

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The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says there were 813 highway fatalities on Kentucky roadways in 2023, an increase from the 744 seen in 2022.

The KYTC’s Office of Highway Safety says in those fatal accidents, 51 percent of victims were not wearing a seatbelt. 33 percent of the accidents involved speeding or aggressive driving, 20 percent involved distracted drivers, and 16 percent involved alcohol.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says wearing a seatbelt is the single most effective way of preventing injury or death in a traffic accident. Seatbelt use and the dangers of drunk driving continue to be the primary subjects of most public awareness campaigns.

The KYTC says it continues to focus on infrastructure projects that improve safety for everybody on the roadway, including a pilot project set to begin this summer that will test systems that detect and deter wrong-way crashes along select interstate ramps in Fayette and Jefferson counties. 

Preliminary numbers for 2024 report 170 roadway deaths, which is down more than 13 percent compared to this time last year.