TEAMS Competition

by Catherine Porter
marketing and communication '16

MARCH 16 – Nineteen area teams recently competed at Trine University during an annual competition designed to help middle and high school students discover their potential for engineering.

Fifteen high school and four middle school teams from Indiana and Michigan competed in the TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science) competition Feb. 23 in the University Center. The theme for this year’s competition was "Engineering the Tools of Innovation.”

Using math, science, engineering and 21st century learning skills, students worked collaboratively to solve real-world everyday challenges. The two-part test included a 90-minute multiple choice exam and a 90-minute design challenge where students built a paper skyscraper.

Trine University host site awards traveling trophies to the top teams in Divisions I and II. The winner for Division I was the Penn High School, Mishawaka, 11th- and 12th-grade Team C. A team of 9th- and 10th-graders representing Penn High School also won Division II. Discovery Middle School Team A won the middle school division of the competition.

Those on the winning Division I Penn High School team are Mason Lee, Peter Rutkowski, Vishal Patel, Andrew Bernard, Julia Kwak, Monesh Devireddy, Alex Dobbins and Annaliza Canda, led by coach Becky Tagliaferri.

Members of the Penn High School team that won Division II are Keegan Palonis, Priya Chaudhary, Tingyi Lu, Chelsea Chen, Becca Yuan, Amy Bernard, Celine Wang and Leah Ingle, also led by Tagliaferri.

The winning middle school team, headed by coach Michelle Crawford, included Yewon Oh, Tara Devaraj, Lyvia Li, Courney Sharpe, Elisabeth Casetti, Hassaan Khan, Seunghoon Sun and Noah Lang.

Trine University’s McKetta Department of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering sponsored the John J. McKetta Outstanding Junior Engineering Team Award and the Mike McKetta Outstanding Junior Engineering Team Award for Divisions I and II, respectively, based on the scores on part 1 of the exam.

To learn more about the TEAMS competition, visit teams.tsaweb.org.

Division II winning team

Middle School winning team