Howard County Students Excel in Regional MESA Competition

April 29th, 2024

Earlier this year, more than 500 HCPSS students from 20 elementary, middle and high schools competed in a virtual HCPSS Math, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) Day Competition. During the event, HCPSS students participated in several different science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) challenges, including:

Planetary Lander Challenge – Design and build a structure that allows astronauts to land successfully on the surface of another world.
Community Cleanup – Create a trash-collecting device to help clean up your community.
Wearable Technology Challenge – Design a respiration monitoring device for a breathing prosthetic infant.
Storybook Theme Park Ride – Design and construct a Theme Park Ride based on a book of the student’s choosing. (Elementary students only.)
National Engineering Design Challenge – Design a device using multiple technologies to solve a problem that minimizes or eliminates barriers to opportunities for success. (Middle and high school students only.)

Participating students prepared a variety of projects, including demonstration videos and posters, and design documents, in response to these challenges. A group of judges, composed largely of community members, reviewed and scored the projects and, on April 6, students shared and discussed their projects with other students, parents and guests.

All first-place teams (listed below) advanced to the 2024 Maryland MESA State competition on May 4, where they will compete against other Maryland school districts.

Grade Level	School	Competition
Elementary Schools	Longfellow	Community Cleanup Challenge
	Longfellow	Wearable Tech
	St. John’s Lane	Planetary Lander Challenge
	St. John’s Lane	Storybook Theme Park Challenge
Middle Schools	Patapsco	Community Cleanup Challenge
	Patapsco	Wearable Tech
	Patapsco	National Engineering Design Challenge (NEDC)
	Thomas Viaduct	Planetary Lander Challenge
High Schools	Atholton	National Engineering Design Challenge (NEDC)
	Atholton	Planetary Lander Challenge
	Long Reach	Wearable Tech
	Mt. Hebron	Community Cleanup Challenge

MESA is a structured, afterschool, pre-college program that prepares students for academic and professional careers in mathematics, engineering, science, and technology and is offered in partnership with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Maryland MESA Program.