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Main photo: Huntsville Public School’s animation team, Madison and Gabrielle Watts (foreground), Kade Vink (back left) and Trinity Spry (supplied)<\/em><\/p>\n Four grade eight students from Huntsville Public School (HPS) are headed to the Ontario Skills Competition this May in Toronto.<\/p>\n Trinity Spry, Kade Vink, Madison Watts, and Gabrielle Watts won the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) 2019 animation competition, and have qualified to move on to the provincial level. They were the only Huntsville-area team to enter.<\/p>\n Katrina Cotterchio read about the animation skills competition online and thought this group of students would love to practice their art skills on a new level, this time digital.<\/p>\n “All of these students are very independent,” said Cotterchio. “They\u2019re all amazing artistically.”<\/p>\n HPS was up against Central Senior School and Monck Public School for the Elementary Best in TLDSB Character Animation on February 28. The teams weren\u2019t given the theme, \u201cThe Unexpected Hero\u201d, ahead of time and had just a four-hour time frame to complete their animation.<\/p>\n Jacki McPherson, experiential learning consultant for TLDSB, was the judge and visited each school to assess their animation. Students were judged on teamwork, story plan, completion time, setting and acting.<\/p>\n Huntsville Public School submitted the winning animation, which McPherson describes on YouTube: “A team of four creative students from Huntsville Public School created this animation of a boy who is threatened by a pack of wolves, but when the Alpha wolf prepares to attack, the boy is unexpectedly snatched by Gerald, a saviour wolf who rescues the boy from harm. The students used Adobe Animate and a drawing pad to create this animation, and look forward to enhancing their skills and techniques as they prepare to represent TLDSB as they compete at the 2019 Skills Ontario provincial competition.” See their animation below.<\/p>\n