Robotics boss

Classical Christian Academy junior first Idaho student to earn FIRST Dean’s List Award

Robotics is a driving passion for Classical Christian Academy junior Nathan Bossé, who has been active with his school's FIRST Tech Challenge I-Bots team since he was in fifth grade.

Bossé is also a mentor, a problem-solver, a 4.0 GPA-holder and a volunteer, all the right qualities to land him the prestigious FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge Dean's List Award.

As one of only 10 students out of about 3,400 from around the world to receive this honor, Bossé is also the first Idaho student to earn a Dean's List Award since its inception in 2010. He was virtually presented the award on May 2.

"I was overjoyed," said the 17-year-old. "It was just very nice to see that I have been able to achieve this.”

He said this was the second year he was able to apply for the award. The first year he made it to the state level.

“When I made it to the semifinal levels, that was extremely exciting, and being able to make it to the finals level was really heartening to see the work I put into it had paid off,” he said.

Just to apply for the Dean's List Award, sophomores and juniors involved in FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge must have a nearly flawless GPA in school and have recommendations from coaches. They're required to submit essays and undergo interviews conducted by FIRST League representatives. The rest relies heavily on information supplied by teachers, peers and judges about the work and drive demonstrated by the applicant.

His robotics teacher, Deanna Finley, has no shortage of positive things to say about her stellar student.

"He’s quite an amazing young man," she said. "He mentors younger first grade through eighth grade students in programming. He volunteers everywhere."

Finley said it was an amazing moment when Bossé, the lead programmer for the I-Bots team, was named a Dean's List Award winner.

"I actually cried because this was a student that did not want to be a programmer at first when I told him he was going to be a programmer," she said. "He decided after about a year that he enjoyed it and he wants to go into mechanical engineering or software engineering.”

Bossé said robotics has really taught him to "actively search things out, not just take things that come your way, but to be motivated to search for things, to search out colleges and scholarship opportunities."

"It’s also helped me to be more self-taught, especially with programming," he said.

As a senior, Bossé will be team captain and will train a younger student to be a programmer. He is considering attending the University of Idaho.

"It’s very fun to do all this," he said.