Carter Siewert

Creativity Leads to 3rd Place at SkillsUSA Nationals 

In a massive crowd of over 15,000 people at the SkillsUSA nationals award ceremony, now-senior Carter Siewert was crowned a 3^rd place winner for his video game, “Murder Mansion” that he developed over his junior year. Carter managed to be the only Kentucky competitor to take a podium level award, bringing great pride to our state and to Henderson. I was lucky enough to be a chaperone on the trip and witnessed this amazing moment that Carter worked hard for, and I got to sit down with him to discuss the “ins and outs” of his game that has been a joy to play for his classmates and many others. 

“It all started in Mr. Inge’s class,” Carter stated. “He gave us an assignment, and the theme was ‘mystery’ and ‘boss fight’. I decided to make a murder mystery game with a character that follows you around like a boss.” Carter is part of the pathway in the Career and Technical Education unit taught by Mr. Dalton Inge that focuses on programming and game design. In Carter’s game, the goal is to find the murder weapon and the identity of the killer before the “boss character” can catch you. It is a mix of a chase scene and investigative work, and Carter’s classmates and Mr. Inge were very impressed by what he turned in. “We showed it to the class, and everyone seemed to like it. People were playing it and asking me for the download so they could play it on their own.” He beat out all but two out of forty-nine other competitors at nationals, and he is determined to do even better next year. Carter is already thinking about what he can do differently next year to place higher.

Carter reminisced on his progress through the SkillsUSA competitions. “When we first went into the state competition, we weren’t even expecting to place. We were just scouting because it was our first time ever going to a competition like this. So, I don’t even think we were very prepared. So now I know from seeing other competitors at nationals what I should improve, like the documentation, presentation, and some other things like the test we had to take to get in.” 

Carter faced some serious challenges over the course of the game’s development and the SkillsUSA competitions. “I went through four partners,” Carter stated. “My first partner, Eli, did the most out of them all, but I did all of the coding and got all of the artwork for the characters. Eli added the decorations for the map and helped with that, which was very helpful.” Carter went to state with a different partner, then had to get an entirely separate partner for the national’s trip. Unfortunately, Carter’s partner for nationals had to drop out at the last minute, leaving Carter on his own. He actually lost points for not having a partner in the competition but still managed to snag third place. Carter did want to thank his first partner, Eli Schmidt, for his contributions to the game. Carter also wanted to give a huge shoutout to Mr. Inge for getting him interested in video game design and for helping him every step of the way. 

Hallie Siewert, Carter’s mom and owner of HallieCakes, expressed great pride in her son. “I was so nervous. He called me at state and was like, ‘we’re just going to go get some knowledge and see what’s happening,’ but I said that you never know what could happen and that his game was really good. He calls me after the interview and says, ‘I have a good feeling we might win.’ So that was really exciting. After he won state, we were determined to get him to nationals, which was stressful because it was right before we left for a trip to Canada. This is something that he just loves and it’s probably the biggest passion he has. We were determined to make it happen for him and for how nice it will look on college resumes. He didn’t think he was going to place in the top three at nationals, but he thought he scored really high. He knew not having a partner would definitely hurt him. But, of course, when he called us, and we put it on speaker phone with all my family there, he said…” At this point, Hallie started to tear up. “I can hardly even talk about it. I still think about it, and it gives me chills! He told us he got third and we just were overjoyed for him.” 

When those of us at nationals in Atlanta found out Carter placed, the top three finalists were shown by state at the jumbotron at the arena. When Kentucky popped up, all of us that were with Carter screamed and the excitement was palpable. Carter and Mr. Inge ran down to the stage as fast as possible, and when Carter was crowned the third-place winner, there was definitely some cheering and jumping up and down happening by the Henderson team in the stands. 

Hallie said that she is also proud of Carter’s creativity, although it must run in the family more than she might think because of her amazing dessert designs. “He has that creative background and he’s always been like that. We have been so surprised because usually when you have that math side of your brain like my family does it doesn’t show up as much. I was a math major, my mom was a math teacher, my dad was a math professor, so his creativity has blown me away. Even as a young kid, he was way more creative than I could ever imagine myself being. It’s a nice balance because he needs that creativity in some of the things he enjoys coding. It kinda makes sense now!”

Congratulations to Carter for his major win, and we can’t wait to see what he can accomplish next year!