CSUF
MESA High School Team Takes Off to National Competition
in Maryland This Week
Future Engineering Students Compete in Trebuchet Event,
Build Catapult Device Using Computer Simulations, Models
June 19, 2007 :: No. 236
Four students from Costa Mesa High School
will be heading to Maryland this week to compete in the 2007
MESA USA National Engineering Design Competition.
Top (left to right) Ted Lee, Dorian Flores, Juan
Dominguez. Bottom (left to right) Richard
Kyo, Peter
Pham |
Last month,
the high school team, affiliated with Cal State Fullerton’s
MESA (Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement) program,
won the California trebuchet — a
type of catapult with a sling on the end — competition.
As
a result, the team garnered a spot at the national event
June 22-24 at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. The
future engineering students will compete against teams from
eight states.
This is the first time that a high school
team from CSUF’s
MESA program has advanced to the national competition, said
Vonna Hammerschmitt, director of the university’s MESA
program for students in 6th through 12th grade.
“We’re
proud of the MESA team members. Their achievement helps to
motivate and inspire other MESA students. This feat also
brings nationwide visibility to the program — and to
the university,” Hammerschmitt
said.
For the team to get to the national level,
Hammerschmitt said it means that the Costa Mesa students
were better than any other team in the state. “They
defeated 32 other teams at various venues across California
to advance to the nationwide competition,” she added.
The
Fullerton MESA team has had a longstanding track record of
success. This year, the students’ winning trail
began in February when the team finished first in the local
MESA Day competition during CSUF’s Engineering Week,
defeating 15 teams.
In
March, the group competed against 11 teams and swept the
Southern California regional competition in Imperial Valley.
Then in May, the Fullerton team came home as the top winners
in the MESA California Engineering Design Competition at
Cal State Fresno.
Four years ago, the team was also the first
group of Fullerton MESA student engineers ever to win first
place overall in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Invention
Challenge, noted Steve Nelson, Costa Mesa High School MESA
adviser. “I
knew they were special then. I wanted them to close out their
high school careers with us in a spectacular way — and,
they sure did!”
The MESA competitions required students
to design and build a trebuchet that demonstrates distance,
accuracy and power.
“The trebuchet these students designed
and constructed out-performed all others by a wide margin,” Hammerschmitt
said.
Additionally, the students had to write a
technical paper, design an academic display board and give
an oral presentation.
The Costa Mesa students
who will be competing on the MESA team in Maryland are Juan
Dominguez, Dorian
Flores, Richard Kyo and Ted
Lee.
Senior Peter Pham will be attending as the
team’s manager.
Three members of the team completed the Johns Hopkins “What
Is Engineering?” summer
course offered on the Cal State Fullerton campus to area
high school students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds
who show promise in math and science. The other two are scheduled
for this summer’s course, which begins July
9.
The students are thrilled about earning a
spot at the national event and look forward to competing
against their peers from other states. MESA, the CSUF College
of Engineering and Computer Science and contributions from
private donors are paying for their trip to Maryland.
“I
couldn’t have imagined a better way to end our senior
year,” Flores
said. “I feel very proud to represent the state of
California.”
Kyo added: “It has been a long haul.
But in the end, all of the hours of hard work have paid off,
and our success is the reward.”
For the competitions,
the team built a prototype and used computer simulations
to find the optimum size and weight of the components. They
built three working models and practiced and refined their
designs, Nelson said. In preparation for the national contest,
the students have rewritten the technical paper three times,
rebuilt the trebuchet, rehearsed their oral presentation
and built a custom-designed travel case for the device.
“It’s been hectic, to say the
least,” Nelson
said, adding that the team members will be attending their
high school graduation Thursday, then will board a plane
for a red-eye flight to Maryland.
“The CSUF MESA
program has done so much to support our kids over the years
that it is gratifying to share our success with them,” Nelson
added.
Cal State Fullerton’s MESA program is an academic enrichment
program, serving more than 1,400 students at seven area high
schools and eight intermediate schools. The program offers
a variety of services and activities to encourage students
to pursue degrees in math, science, engineering and computer
science.
Media Contacts: |
Vonna Hammerschmitt, CSUF MESA program director,
657-278-3114, or vhammerschmitt@fullerton.edu
Debra Cano Ramos, Public Affairs, 657-278-4027, or
dcanoramos@fullerton.edu |
«
back to News Front
|