Chris Streufert

My senior year of high school at Arrowhead Union High School, I walked into my Systems & Controls class and saw only one friend. I thought this is going to be a long year. Then Mr. Streufert walked in. It was only 9 in the morning but his energy made it feel like it was 2 in the afternoon. Then I knew that this class was going to be fun. Every day after that Mr. Streufert always had a lot of energy and made that class better. It surprised me to hear that he has a son. He has so much energy every day even though he has a kid to deal with. To me, dealing with little kids every day seems like a nightmare, so for Mr. Streufert to be living through that “nightmare” and still have enough energy to make the class fun and enjoyable is surprising to me. I got to know everyone in the class, made some new friends, and was always excited to go to that class knowing that it was going to be fun. Once the projects started rolling in I got a little bit worried that I wasn’t going to enjoy this class as much as I thought I was. First we made LEDs light up which was easy. But then we had some pretty difficult projects like making a 60 second timer using AOI logic and flip flops (not the shoes). The breadboarding projects were a little annoying at first because I didn’t know what I was doing, but any time I had a problem, Mr. Streufert was more than willing to help me out. Whether it was because I wasn’t sure where a wire had to go or it was troubleshooting an error Mr. Streufert was always there. On days when we weren’t breadboarding, Mr. Streufert always managed to make the lectures interesting. Breadboarding is when you use a board with a bunch of holes in them that are connected in certain ways to wire and display AOI logic. He would entertain everyone’s questions, even if they were jokes, and it made the class that much better. Even with that we always had time at the end of class to start working on our homework. Now, we are working on a bigger project and Mr. Streufert has let us play around with the design of it. We are designing the code for an oven so we can make food. We were able to design our own display board, make our own music that plays when the oven is done baking, and bake something we want. If it were any other teacher, I don’t think this class would be nearly as fun. So, Mr. Streufert, thank you. Thank you for being you and letting us have freedom with our projects. Thank you for always having energy and having an uplifting mood even when you have long nights with your son. Thank you for being there when something went wrong and I couldn’t figure out what was happening. Thank you for listening to all of the stupid questions our class has. Thank you for allowing us to be ourselves. Thank you, Mr. Streufert, for being the best teacher ever.

Andrew Athas