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Senior Daniel Perodin loves to play chess. He started playing with his dad when he was around six. Now he’s in his second year as president of the Palmetto High School Chess Club.
“We host a space for students at palmetto to learn and to compete against each other,” he says. “Last year we did not do competitions against other schools, this year we are trying to do that.”
The club hosted an in-school competition last year. The games were spread over two weeks, although most of the games were played on a single date.
Perodin enjoyed playing chess at Frank C. Martin K-8 when he attended.
“In fourth grade there was a chess club, when I was there, however they stopped having it when I was in sixth grade,” he says.
Because of his history there, last year he started a chess outreach program at his old school.
“I wanted to give the students the experience,” he says.
Last year he went every Monday for two hours to help the club sponsor. He helped kids learn the game.
“Many of them would need the basics. I would play against them. It was amazing to see how they grew,” he says. “From not knowing to learning moves, seeing them do complex moves and setting traps on the board.”
Perodin also volunteers at Southwood Middle School to help with the Chess Club.
At Palmetto, he’s the secretary of the African Heritage Club.
“I helped bring that back, there was a period of hiatus and a group of us brought it back last year,” he says. “We ran a drive for school and food supplies for the children in Haiti.”
The 11 boxes of non-perishable supplies were shipped to Haiti, but they were stuck in a warehouse for some time, waiting for someone to pick them up and take them to FNKDO charity.
“The logistics are really, really difficult,” he says. “Obviously the kids need that food. They will get it. It’s in Haiti and waiting for them.”
He is happy that the drive went so well.
“It shows people have kindness in their hearts. People did so much. I love to see how much they cared about the kids,” he says.
Perodin is Co-President of the Robotics Club, which is now also doing the SECME competition, which he says is a way for Palmetto students to engage in STEM activities while also representing the school at competitions.
“As a club we did well,” he says. “My co-president did the bridge competition and he won. We participated in the Mousetrap competition – my brother and I.”
Club members will also take part in the VEX robotics competition.
“We are building a robot for that competition,” he says.
He is on the newspaper staff as feature editor.
“It’s one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve been a part of. Last year I was vice president of the newspaper club,” he says. “I brought the issues of the staffers to the editors-in-chief and I helped out with the club things, the club fair or the banners.”
He expects his future to include computer coding. Perodin is applying to the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of Michigan and University of California at Berkely to study electrical engineering and computer science.
He developed a chess app that takes data from Chess.com that will compute their win percentage. The app can recognize the opening used in the game and provides the user with a link to a YouTube video or web page about that opening.
