Howard County School Team Wins First Place Honors in State-level MESA Competition

May 30th, 2017

A team from Patapsco Middle School recently earned first place in the state-level Maryland State Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) competitions. The event was hosted at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Center in Laurel, Maryland.

Patapsco Middle school team group photo — Students from Patapsco Middle School took first place at the state-level MESA competition.

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s Maryland MESA program identifies and supports Grades 3–8 students statewide to prepare them for college majors in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

Patapsco Middle School sixth-graders Sanika Devare, Annika Means, Giuliana Pangan and Gwyneth Watson earned first place in the middle school Prosthetic Arm category. Their school adviser is Danielle Stephenson.

Patapsco Middle school team demonstrating prosthetic limb — The Patapsco Middle School team in action during the Prosthetic Arm Challenge.

The Prosthetic Arm Challenge involves the development of a low-cost prosthetic device that must complete a set of predefined tasks. Teams were challenged to build a device that could be used to complete daily tasks in school and at play.

The Patapsco Middle School team will represent Maryland at the MESA national competitions, which will take place June 21–24 in Philadelphia.

For more information, visit http://www.jhuapl.edu/mesa/home/default.asp.