Casa Grande Union High School Students “TEAM” Up to Win Engineering & Math Competition

CASA GRANDE – May 23, 2008 – Forget about experiencing any first-year jitters.  When it comes to TEAMS earlier this year, Casa Grande Union High School students performed like seasoned veterans!

Despite participating in the competition for the very first time, eight Casa Grande Union High School students TEAMED up to capture a division title at the 15th Annual Tests of Engineering Aptitudes, Math and Science (TEAMS), held earlier this year at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic Campus in Mesa.

Under the leadership of mathematics teacher John Morris, the team of seniors Nelson Fearn and Nancy Robles; juniors Michael Cox, Cristino Duran and Manuel Rodriguez; sophomores Stephanie Nieto and Jonathan Wood; and freshman Matt Geres placed first in the Division VII competition. 

TEAMS is a one-day, two-part national competition challenging high school students in grades 9-12 to work together as a team to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world engineering scenarios. 

Competitions are held on nearly 70 college and university campuses across the country each year, inspiring creativity, teamwork, critical thinking and peer-to-peer cooperation.  More than 650 high schools and approximately 10,000 students participate in the competition nationwide.

This year’s theme, coinciding with this summer’s Beijing Olympics, was “Behind the Scenes: Athletic Events.”  Each challenge scenario focused on the engineering necessary to pull of a large scale athletic event, from traffic flow and security to the design of venues and facilities. 

The sports themselves were also examined, such as how aerodynamic principles can be applied to soccer or baseball to increase performance and gain a competitive edge.

Casa Grande’s first year success caught the eye of Peggy Fussel, an event coordinator for the competition.

“This is a very hard test,” Fussel said.  “Casa Grande did a good job their first time out.”

To prepare for the competition, the students held practices twice a week throughout the month of February.  The thrill of victory seems to be worth the sacrifice, at least according to teammate Michael Cox.  When asked to be a part of Casa Grande’s 2009 team, the junior enthusiastically answered, “You bet.”

That could spell bad news for other schools hoping to TEAM up on Casa Grande next year!