Aspiring student engineers from Garden Grove High School earned runner-up honors at the California MESA National Engineering Design Competition Wind Energy Challenge UC Santa Barbara.
The team of sophomores Michael McDonald Tran, Severin Zaluzec and Sam Gregory from the school’s MESA (Math, Engineering, Science Achievement) Club placed second overall in the rigorous contest against three other high school teams representing their respective state regions.
In the state finals, the trio’s model windmill faced top regional entries from high schools in Stockton, Santa Paula, and Inglewood. Stagg High School from Stockton, the Northern Region winner, claimed the state title and will advance to the national championships next month in Seattle.
For the state event, each team designed and constructed a windmill from simple household materials and captured wind power to demonstrate the effectiveness of their projects. The contestants subjected their models to a series of rigorous tests, such as using the energy produced to raise weight and measuring the power generated following a change in wind direction. Along with windmill performance, all teams were judged on a technical paper, academic display, and oral presentation.
The state MESA windmill challenge teams were drawn from four regions – Northern, Central, Southern, and Los Angeles. The local students qualified for the state contest after winning the regional preliminaries in February at UC Irvine and capturing first-place in the high school Southern Region finals last month at Chapman University.
Hon Shiu “Sunny” Costello, a district math teacher on special assignment, serves as the advisor to the Garden Grove High MESA Club.
MESA is an academic development program administered by the University of California supporting high school students so they can excel in math and science studies and graduate college with degrees in engineering, science, and technology. MESA Southern Region schools, of which Orange County is a part, is served by UC Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
