Howard County Students Excel at 2019 Regional MESA/STEM Day Competition

April 15th, 2019

Howard County Public School System students excelled in the Maryland Mathematics Engineering and Science Achievement program’s regional MESA Day competitions on April 2, 2019 at The Meeting House in Columbia.

The competitions included 12 events in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, with 280 HCPSS students participating in teams representing three elementary, five middle and four high schools.

Contestants demonstrated their STEM knowledge, creativity and communications skills in a variety of challenges. Some teams developed programs dealing with cyber security and interactive game design, while others built bridges out of basswood under strict guidelines that evaluated the structural integrity of the bridges. In a new Wearable Technology competition, students designed and constructed devices capable of monitoring infant vital signs. High school teams programmed virtual cyber robots to automatically complete mazes laced with viruses, and demonstrated their code breaking capabilities.

First place winners of all events will represent Howard County at the Maryland Statewide MESA competition on Saturday, May 18, 9 a.m., at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel. The public is invited to attend.

First place winning teams of the April 2 event were:

Elementary School level:

• Story Book Theme Park competition – Guilford Elementary School
• Wearable Technology and Scratch computer programming competitions – St. John’s Lane Elementary School
• Wood Bridge building competition – Jeffers Hill Elementary School

Middle School level:

• National Engineering Design Challenge- Murray Hill Middle School
• Alice 3D programming and Wearable Technology competitions – Patapsco Middle School
• Wood Bridge building competition – Thomas Viaduct Middle School

High School level:

• Cyber Robot, Wearable Technology and National Engineering Design Challenge competitions – Long Reach High School
• Wood Bridge building competition – Reservoir High School