San Gabriel High School’s Mathematics, Engineering, and Scientific Achievement (MESA) club attended the 10th Annual Boeing Day and College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology (ECST) Open House at the California State University, Los Angeles in October. This year, the theme of the workshop was aerospace engineering.
“Our team had an awesome day at CSULA,” Adviser Nicolas Nguyen said. “Our students explored engineering and technology fields through lab tours and interacted with college students, professors, and engineers from Boeing. Students also attended workshops, such as writing personal statements for college applications. In addition, some of our students were chosen to learn how to create apps for Android devices.”
The day included a competition in which schools drafted blueprints for a glider, and then prototyped and tested it. Each school attending the workshop was allowed to enter two MESA teams, one composed of freshmen and sophomores and one of juniors and seniors, into the Wright Stuff Glider Competition.
Through team effort, San Gabriel’s freshman and sophomore team placed third in the competition, and the junior and senior team placed first. Boeing engineers judged the contest. The members of both teams wished to remain anonymous and said that the victory was “a whole MESA team effort.”
“The goal of MESA is to infuse students with knowledge from applied classroom learning,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The fun part [of the workshop] was seeing the students who were learning and interacting with engineering.” The goal of the partnership between Cal State LA and Boeing is create a pipeline of engineers starting at the middle school and high school grades.
This article was written by Erin Truong, junior, News Editor, The Matador, San Gabriel High School.
(Posted: 1/23/15)