Some people work better under pressure. You can count Española Valley High School’s Math, Science and Engineering Achievement (MESA) team members among that group.
The high school team beat six other teams to place first at MESA’s North Central Regional competition Jan. 30 in Santa Fe to qualify for the statewide competition (see sidebar on page A5). Three Española Middle school teams beat seven teams to take top prizes in the math, roller coaster and Lego robotics categories. However, the middle school’s Lego project did not meet minimum requirements and will not be allowed to advance to the state competition, middle school program sponsor Thansewi Martinez said.
The winning high school team waited to the night before MESA’s North Central regional competition Jan. 30 in Santa Fe to finish its project. They were tasked with building a roller coaster out of Popsicle sticks, hot glue, tape and a marble and still had a long way to go before completing the project.
Many hours, multiple glue gun burns and one razor blade cut to sophomore Marissa Boylan’s pinkie finger later, the project was complete. The team stayed up until 4 a.m. fine-tuning the roller coaster’s loop and the speed at which the marble could run the course without flying off the track, sophomore team member Katricia Salazar said. By 5 a.m. they were on the road to Santa Fe, she said.
“Lots of Skittles and drinking energy drinks,” Boylan said when asked what kept the team going.
Junior Anthony Brown estimated he and his teammates each devoted 60 hours to the project.
That hard work paid off. The high school team beat out six other teams to place first at the competition and qualify for the statewide competition (see sidebar). The Española Middle school teams also took top prizes in the math and Lego robotics categories. However, the middle school’s Lego project did not meet minimum requirements and will not be allowed to advance to the state competition, middle school math teacher and program sponsor Thansewi Martinez said.
Program co-sponsor and high school chemistry teacher Olivia Lujan said she had just gotten out of the hospital a few days before the competition and was blown away when she saw her team’s final product.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s our kids,’” Lujan said. “I’m real proud of them.”
The Española Middle School’s team also completed their roller coaster coming down the home stretch.
“When they didn’t have it finished after our last meeting, a bunch of their parents came by to pick the kids up and help them out gathering supplies,” Martinez said. “That parent support really makes the difference.”
The team pulled together to finish the project at one student’s home and brought it to an intimidating field in Santa Fe, Martinez said.
“I think they saw a bunch of other students’ projects and were worried,” Martinez said. “(Our team) thought their design was pretty basic in comparison, you know, nothing overly elaborate. But it turned out those other teams were having a hard time keeping their marbles in place.”
Still, the Española Middle School team won first place overall, a big accomplishment for a mostly female team in a field of study traditionally dominated by men, Martinez said.
“What’s really nice is that our team consists mostly of girls,” Martinez said. “A lot of them were afraid because it was mostly boys in the competition. They were really excited when I told them they won first place.”
In fact, Española’s two roller coaster teams scored the highest of any projects in the entire regional competition, with 170.5 points for the high school team and 172.8 points for the middle school team.
Judges awarded up to 200 points to each project based on several factors, including its abstract, its functionality and an interview with the team, program guidelines state. Teams competed with projects in math, science, Lego robotics, roller coaster, wind energy and surprise categories.
But high school math teacher and program co-sponsor Michael Throne said his team has some tune-ups to do on its roller coaster before the state competition.
“They need to polish it up a little bit,” Throne said. “It just wasn’t as smooth as it should have been. But if they can smooth that out, I think they stand a good chance.”
Mesa Vista’s middle school team took third place overall, and Pojoaque High School finished a close second overall in the high school competition to host Santa Fe High School, nabbing five-second place ribbons in the competition’s six categories. Because of budget cutbacks, only the first-place team in each category advances to state competition, guidelines state. That means neither Mesa Vista nor Pojoaque will advance to Albuquerque.
Both the high school and middle school teams are holding fund-raisers to help offset the cost of the trip and other MESA-related activities, Lujan and Martinez said. Call XXX-XXXX for more information.