On Saturday, February 24th, the Costa Mesa High School MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science, Achievement) team, led by Mr. Ngyuen and Ms. Cross, competed at UCI against several other schools from AUHSD, Compton USD, GGUSD, LAUSD, Lynwood USD, NMUSD, and SAUSD.
We had several students getting 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in the competition, earning them a ribbon or medal.
MESA is one big team that has separate partner teams that participate in different competitions, the MESA Machine being one of them. In this Rube Goldberg challenge, students must utilize multiple actions to blow a car three meters away and hit a target.
“[the competition] went really well,” said Chelsea Vilchis-Garcia, a junior who competed in MESA Machine. “I had a rough start on the first trial, but my machine met all the rules and requirements so in total the points added up, and I won first place for both engineering design and overall performance!”
Chelsea, along with the other students who placed 1st in their categories, will be moving on to the next round of competition, which will be held in Imperial Valley on April 13th.
“My favorite part about MESA is the way we bond after school when everyone is trying to build their projects [as well as] the bus rides, and the overall good energy whether [we] win or don’t,” said Vilchis-Garcia.
Here are the results of the UCI MESA competition:
MESA Machine Accuracy (9-10 Division):
1st Place: Escher Clark and Thuc Nguyen
MESA Machine Innovative Engineering Design (9-10 Division):
1st Place: Escher Clark and Thuc Nguyen
MESA Machine Accuracy (11-12 Division):
1st Place: Chelsea Vilchis-Garcia and Joaquin Bernal
MESA Machine Innovative Engineering Design (11-12 Division):
1st Place: Chelsea Vilchis-Garcia and Joaquin Bernal
Moon Base Impact-to-Mass Ratio (9-10 Division):
1st Place: Britany Escobedo and Victoria Rios
Moon Base Innovative Engineering Design (9-10 Division):
3rd Place: Britany Escobedo and Victoria Rios
Moon Base Impact-to-Mass Ratio (11-12 Division):
1st Place: Kyle Huynh and Jada Lee
Moon Base Innovative Engineering Design (11-12 Division):
2nd Place: Kyle Huynh and Jada Lee
Crime Scene Science (9-10 Division):
1st Place: Christopher Giraud and Isabella Im
Math Escape Room (9-12 Division):
1st Place: Aidan Quintos, Kingston Do, and Anton Grun
Cargo Glider Innovative Engineering Design (9-10 Division):
2nd Place: Brennan Lanz, Brandon Le, and Aidan Marcus
Cargo Glider Innovative Engineering Design (11-12 Division):
2nd Place: German Leon, Evan Garcia, and Nam Le
Coding Solutions (9-12 Division):
3rd Place: Edgar Sanchez
Great job, MESA team!
