From April 17 to 20, State High students traveled to Seven Springs for the annual Pennsylvania TSA state competition. TSA, or Technology Student Association, is a national organization integrating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) into activities and competition for middle and high school students. 

Students had the opportunity to take part in over 82 events, ranging from biotechnology to architectural design. This wide variety of events gave students an outlet to connect their passions and interests to peer competition. 

State High took home first place in eight categories- Geospatial Technology, Future Technology & Engineering Teacher, Children’s Stories, Board Game Design, Biotechnology Design, Architectural Design, Animatronics, and Visual Reality Visualization. 

Junior Isabelle McSweeney placed first in Biotechnology Design, along with her team of Margo Wyckoff, Harper House, and Sienna Sullivan.

“It was a huge shock, I did not see it coming,” McSweeney said. The team had spent over 34 hours building their display. 

Other first place winners included Natalie Bransetter in Animatronics, Children’s Stories, and Geospatial Technology. In Board Game Design, John Cho, William Zhang, Quantum Qiu, Joshua Wang, Jerry Zhang, and Aaron Weaver took home gold. Sophia Seidel placed first in Geospatial Technology and Animatronics with Linda Wang. Donna Tan led in Virtual Reality Visualization and Wyckoff also placed first in Future Engineering and Technology Teacher. Lastly, Bryan Wang and Kai Leonard came out top in Architectural Design.

Participating students were not only successful in conferencing, but also broadened their professional skills.

“It’s not just about competing, you also get opportunities to meet a lot of [people] […] and there’s a lot of different events and meetings. There’s also opportunities to network,” sophomore Leo Wang said. He placed second in Data Science and Cybersecurity. 

Junior Margo Wyckoff agreed. “It’s nice to get the independence of being away for about four days, and it’s good to build connections with kids from our school and other schools,” she said. “[The environment] is very welcoming, and even though we’re all really competitive, there’s a lot of time to meet other people.”

As state vice president, Wyckoff helped organize the competition, is chair of the Regional Representatives Committee, and led the general sessions. 

Lifelong skills are one of TSA’s most important values, and State High students agreed that it was a huge benefit of the competition. “Prepared Presentation helps me work on public speaking, because I feel like it’s a skill I can always improve,” McSweeney said. 

Learning and exploring interests is a core part of TSA. “From a young age, I’ve had an interest in programming, which is why I did a lot of computer science-heavy events: cybersecurity, coding, game development […] so I had to write code to analyze the data and stuff, but it also allows me to branch off into my other interests, like statistics and mathematics,” Wang said. 

In June, State High TSA is heading to Nationals in Orlando. Freshmen Sophia Seidel and Linda Wang both expressed their excitement at attending the national competition. “I’m excited to experience Nationals, because there’s going to be people from all of the states, and I wonder how they operate as well,” Seidel said. Overall, the State High TSA chapter nailed the States Competition, and is looking forward to moving on to Nationals!