TSA competition winners stem from East County schools

Spending weekends and school nights brainstorming her next technology project is Megan Peter’s idea of a good time.

The eighth-grade student at R. Dan Nolan Middle School and other members of the East County school’s Technology Student Association (TSA) team don’t mind spending their free time crafting STEM-based (science, technology, engineering and math) projects on topics such as agriculture and biotechnology design.

“TSA is our version of fun,” Peters said. “Building projects, researching and finding ways to make our projects better is what we all like to do.”

Seven months of project building paid off for the students at the annual TSA State Conference, held Feb. 25 through Feb. 28, in Orlando.

The school won its sixth consecutive middle school championship title at the state conference, in which more than 1,500 middle and high school technology students participated statewide.

Peters, the school’s TSA chapter president, and the 40 other members of the team won 14 first place, 14 second place and five third place awards. They claimed 299 top-three finalist points in 28 of the 31 events the team participated in during the four-day event.

Their winnings are unprecedented at the middle school level of the state TSA competition, Nolan Middle TSA co-advisor Margi Nanney said.

Carlos E. Haile and Braden River middle schools won second and third places in the Team Event and Construction Challenge. Braden River and Lakewood Ranch high schools also participated in the high school division of the competition and contributed to the county’s overall 189 event trophies.

Braden River High won nine first place, 10 second and six third place awards. Overall, the school won first in the high school division, and Lakewood Ranch High won third place.

This is the fifth consecutive year out of 10 years that Braden River High has won the high school championship at the state conference.

Nolan Middle and Braden River High students will advance to the National TSA Conference June 28 through July 2, in Dallas.

Rather than celebrating their victories, Peters and other local TSA students are improving their projects for the next competition.

Nolan students have carved out the first three weeks of summer vacation to use the school’s laboratories for project construction.

“What’s vacation?” Nolan Middle TSA member Alana Kelley asked, laughing. “We know how we want to spend the beginning of summer.”

Contact Amanda Sebastiano at [email protected].