How a High School Senior Outengineered the Automation Industry—From Scratch

The Overlord
Dec 8, 2025
3 min read

A Springdale student is redefining hands-on STEM education—by building industrial automation systems mirroring real-world distribution centers.

Meet Judah Keomoungkhoun: The High School Engineer Industry Wishes It Had

While most high schoolers wrestle with calculus homework, Judah Keomoungkhoun is busy building systems fit for Amazon’s back room. At the Don Tyson School of Innovation, he’s constructed an industrial-grade automation simulator—entirely DIY—using tools typically reserved for seasoned technicians. Here, education isn’t just theoretical; it’s run on conveyor belts, powered by PLCs, and tracked by RFID, all assembled by a student who sees production lines as playgrounds. If you thought “hands-on learning” meant baking soda volcanoes, welcome to the future—one microchip at a time.

Key Point:

One high school student is mastering industrial automation before most adults can even spell 'PLC.'

Technical Training, Rewired: School Labs Meet Industry Standards

Forget prefab kits and pre-scripted assignments—Keomoungkhoun’s setup is a full-fledged, professional-grade system. Using the Allen-Bradley Micro870 PLC as its digital brain, this automation rig is programmed with ladder logic: the visual lingua franca of real-world factories. Coupled with a PowerFlex 525 variable frequency drive to control conveyor speed, photo eyes to mimic sensors that guard every warehouse door, and a 7-inch HMI touchscreen interface, this project blurs any remaining line between classroom and industry floor. The system doesn’t just move imaginary widgets; it’s a precise simulator, faithfully recreating conditions faced by logistics giants. And with barcode readers and RFID like those at global distribution centers, Keomoungkhoun’s work delivers more than coursework—it’s a primer in modern logistics engineering.

Key Point:

Keomoungkhoun isn’t just studying industry tech—he’s building and programming it, DIY style.

DIY Automation: Fusing Curiosity with Distribution Center DNA

It’s one kind of impressive to follow a manual; it’s another to replicate, and better yet, improve upon, the systems powering entire economies. Keomoungkhoun’s conveyor doesn’t just move—it identifies, sorts, and tracks—using logic that rivals those guiding million-dollar logistics operations. By tallying products, directing their routes, and documenting throughput, the high schooler's system acts as both microcosm and mirror for full-scale automation hubs. Instructors and corporate visitors agree: his programming acumen aligns with industry pros, blurring the usual boundary between student and technician. There's meta-irony here—education, so often formulaic, finds itself upstaged by its own creation. The real twist? He's now building modular units to circulate these lessons to other schools, proving sometimes the student literally *writes* the syllabus.

Key Point:

Keomoungkhoun’s innovation doesn’t just simulate industry—it elevates the conversation on what ‘school’ can engineer.

IN HUMAN TERMS:

Automation Isn’t Optional: Why Mastery in High School Changes Everything

Warehouse aisles and conveyor belts seem remote, until your favorite gadgets arrive overnight. Keomoungkhoun’s project spotlights how deeply automation shapes the modern world—from groceries to gadgets to global economies. Yet, few appreciate the complexity powering those familiar wonders. By internalizing automation’s language so early, Keomoungkhoun is not just ahead of the hiring curve; he’s proof that technical fluency is possible—and necessary—well before college. If high schoolers can orchestrate flows of information, products, and technology, can education keep up? Or, ironic twist, does industry now look to the classroom for its next leap forward? In Springdale, at least, that balance has shifted—silicon chips meeting chalk dust in brilliant synergy.

Key Point:

Automation isn’t future tech or distant abstraction; it’s now, and students like Keomoungkhoun are leading the charge.

CONCLUSION:

No Blueprints, No Problem: When Learning Outpaces the Lesson Plan

Here’s the elegant joke—while society debates whether ‘real-world skills’ belong in high school, Keomoungkhoun quietly writes the answer in relays, conveyors, and lines of code. He isn’t merely building machines; he’s constructing new definitions for what learning looks like, and, point of irony, teaching the educators and industry veterans what’s possible when curiosity meets real tools. If you’re still picturing automation as soulless, monotone routines, perhaps you should meet the student breathing new imagination into their circuits. Next time your package whirrs down a fulfillment center track, remember: innovation sometimes wears a student ID badge.

Key Point:

When the curriculum can’t keep up, sometimes the student becomes the system update.