Salk Middle School MESA team to compete at national championships June 20-23
SPOKANE, Wash. – The Math, Engineering and Science Achievement team from Salk Middle School will compete in the MESA USA National Championships in Philadelphia, Penn., June 20-23. Salk won the Washington MESA state championship on May 20 at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash., which is no small accomplishment.
More than 4,000 high school and middle school students competed regionally in the state MESA competition. Of those, 12 teams including more than 40 students qualified for the state competition. Ultimately, one high school team, Ingraham High School in Seattle, and one middle school team, Salk, will go to nationals.
The Spokane MESA program partners with and is co-funded by WSU Spokane.
The team from Salk designed a prosthetic arm prototype, created presentation boards, wrote technical papers and presented their design innovations to a panel of judges.
Prosthetic arm prototypes were judged on efficiency, with a ratio of weight to cost calculated with the effectiveness of the device during the active challenges. The Salk team came in at a cost of less than $40 out of an $80 limit, with an incredibly lightweight design.
The active challenges included moving objects from one location to another and tossing beanbags onto a target with different point levels assigned to sections of the target.
MESA (Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement) supports more than 45,000 students from underrepresented populations nationwide toward success on college and career pathways in STEM.
Media Contact: Brenda Jo VanSlyke, MESA Director, 509-358-7966, brenda.vanslyke@wsu.edu
See WSU News, https://news.wsu.edu/2017/06/06/salk-mesa-national-championships
