Delawareans performed well in a national STEM competition held in June.
More than a dozen Delaware students finished in the top 10 of a national conference designed to test their skills and creativity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
The 2024 National TSA Conference was a five-day competition in Orlando that finished on the last day of June, and the Delaware Technology Student Association (DETSA) recently announced the successes of First Staters.
Delaware had 15 top 10 finishers.
“I am incredibly proud of our students’ accomplishments at this year’s national conference,” said Mike Fitzgerald, the state advisor for the Delaware Technology Student Association. “Their dedication, hard work, and passion have truly paid off.”
The conference had the theme of “Evolution of Excellence” to highlight the importance of continuous improvement and innovation.
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Among the nearly 8,000 global students, educators and industry professionals were 151 Delawareans to compete in events, leadership sessions and networking.
The Technology Student Association (TSA) is a prominent career and technical student organization dedicated to developing the talents and interests of students in the fields of invention, innovation, engineering and technology.
“I enjoy being involved with TSA because it challenges my skills, helps improve my knowledge on new material, and I have a lot of fun competing at the state and national levels,” said Zachary Barnas, a student at Postlethwait Middle School who finished sixth in the video game design competition.
There were a total of 40 high school competitions and 37 middle school competitions.
“These achievements reflect the high standards of education and mentorship provided by our schools and the commitment of our students to excel in their chosen CTE [career and technical education] programs of study,” Fitzgerald said.
Barnas said achieving top 10 for the last two years in video game design has been rewarding because of all the hard work that goes into the competition.
“I find the interviews at nationals to be interesting and inspiring to continue challenging me to grow,” he said. “Overall, TSA has been challenging, fun, and provides opportunities for me to meet new people.”
Here’s how Delaware fared:
1st place: Kedar Lakshmanan, Evan Xie and Christopher Pena-Garcia of H.B. duPont Middle School , Red Clay Consolidated School District , in the Tech Bowl event.
5th place: Henry Gibson, Latrell McGinnis and Wilson Hartely from Fred Fifer Middle School , Caesar Rodney School District , in the Mechanical Engineering event.
6th place: Ashly Benavides Lagunas of Indian River High School , Indian River School District , in the Future Technology & Engineering Teacher event.
6th place: Zachary Barnas, Olivia Herling and Nathan Ridgely from Postlethwait Middle School , Caesar Rodney, in the Video Game Design event.
7th place: Anagha Kuricheti and Vidhi Thakkar of Cab Calloway School of the Arts , Red Clay, in the Challenging Technology Issues event.
9th place: Vedic Mukherjee from Cab Calloway School of the Arts, Red Clay, in the CAD (computer-aided design) Foundations event.
10th place: Laksh Patel and Aayush Singh of MOT Charter School in the Coding event.
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