MESA students succeed at preliminaries

On March 1st, the MESA club went on a trip to CalState LA to showcase their projects and compete in the preliminaries. Not only did the students have a great time connecting with each other through math, science, engineering, and achievement, but they also received many  awards at the end of the event. From the middle school to the high school divisions, several of the club’s members even won awards for placing in their respective competitions. All the winners will advance to the regional competition, which will take place on April 19th. This event and the number of students who won was particularly special to me because I am also a member of the MESA club. I partook in the activities along with dozens of other students from our school and even did a Moon Base project with two of my friends so I know firsthand the hardwork and dedication that these students exhibited and was proud to see their victories. From projects like the NEDC (National Engineering Design Competition) to the Cargo Glider, our school really succeeded in the prelims. This year, Mr. Torres ran the MESA club while Ms. Gamage was the club’s advisor, and I sat down with Mr. Torres to speak about the MESA students’ experience at prelims and the upcoming regional competition.

GF: “How does it feel to have helped so many students in MESA?” Mr. Torres: “It feels great to have helped MESA this year. I’m new to MESA this year, but Ms. Gamage has been doing it for close to 4 years.”

GF: “Before the MESA prelims, do you think that our school would have won the amount of medals they did?”

Mr. Torres: “I think everybody who worked on the projects had good quality. That’s really the reason why our school won a lot of medals. Although we were kind of rushing the projects, the quality of our projects were mostly nicer than other schools.”

GF: “Tell us about the NEDC winners, who won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. How long have they been working on their projects?”

Mr. Torres: “Actually, Ms. Gamage should get a lot of the credit. She’s been working on the projects since the beginning of the year. In one of Ms. Gamage’s engineering classes, they’ve been working on the projects and that's why they’ve been very good. Also, Ms. Gamage had her own prelims around 2-3 weeks before the actual ones. They had 4 people on the panel to judge them and it kind of prepared them for the actual competition.”

GF: “The regional MESA competition is on April 19th. Are the winning students excited for the regionals? Have the students started preparing for their competitions already?”

Mr. Torres: “The students that are going are excited. We have about 10 students going to the regional competition and that competition is going to be a bit more challenging than the prelims. I think they’ll do very well and hopefully, if we do well we’ll go to another competition after that. I think it’s the state competition. We haven’t started preparing yet but the reason for it is because the competition is a continuation of the prelims. For example, the NEDC projects don’t need to be refined too much. As we get closer, we’ll probably have more meetings and push the kids to work more on them.”

GF: “How do you think the students participating in the regionals will react if they won their respective competitions?”

Mr. Torres: “We’re competing against 4 other regions. If a student would win in the regionals, they’ll have a lot of bragging rights and they should feel very accomplished because the regions are very big. That means their project is much better than the others around the LA area.”

GF: “Has there been a year when the MESA club has won this many medals?”

Mr. Torres: “For sure, we’ve never won NEDC because it’s something that the school hasn’t done before until this year. It’s nice we were able to secure all 3 of the top spots. I know in the past years, people have won various competitions though.”

GF: “Lastly, what advice would you give to other students who are interested in math, engineering, science, and achievement?”

Mr. Torres: “My biggest advice would be to be curious, because it's ok that you don't know all the right answers or how to fix things. However, being able to fix something is the most important part. For example, when I was young I would break things to see how they work and I would try and fix them. I think with engineering, that's important and I think in science too, because we do a lot of experiments. It’s all part of the brain, which is what you need to exercise.”

Being part of the MESA club this year, I’ve worked with Mr. Torres in the past, and he really is one of the reasons why the club is a great place to express your interest in MESA. Additionally, like Mr. Torres said in the interview, Ms. Gamage should get a lot of credit in helping the MESA students. Not just for the NEDC projects, but for supervising and helping all the students show their love for MESA. She is a wonderful person to talk to as well, and I know that as I walk into her classroom and work with her every day for my Math and College Eds classes as well as for MESA. But most importantly, MESA’s success this year is due to the students’ perseverance working on their projects. Their hard work definitely paid off, and the winners are excited to advance to the regional competition in April. What I enjoy the most about MESA is that it allows students who are passionate in subjects like engineering, math, and science to express their love for them through the club and participating in very interesting projects. It's not even necessary to make projects - they can join just to share and talk about their interest with others who are curious in MESA-related subjects as well. One thing we can definitely conclude from looking back at the prelims is that the MESA members have clearly conveyed their love for math, engineering, science, and achievement at the competition, and the winners are ready to continue expressing their passion at the regionals.

A link to the various project descriptions can be found here: https://mesa.ucop.edu/resources/