Pella High School students recently competed at the State of Iowa Technology Student Association’s (TSA) 2024 conference and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) competitions. TSA is a national organization which is open to students enrolled in or who have completed technology and education courses, TSA’s membership includes more than 300,000 middle and high school students across the United States. The Iowa TSA competitions were held in Altoona at the Adventureland Conference Center and Park.

This year’s top finishes include:
1st Place: CAD Engineering 3D Modeling – Hayden Papendick (Sr.)
– Students are given a design challenge at the competition where they have three hours to use their own computer and CAD software to create a 3D model to solve the problem.

1st Place: Structural Design and Engineering – Grant Hartke (Jr.) and Jack Weaver (Jr.)
– Students are given materials and 2.5 hours to build a structure that will be tested to destruction in order to measure design efficiency.

1st Place: VEX Robotics – Jack Weaver (Jr.) and Seth Vos (Sr. at Pella Christian)
– Students design and build a VEX robot based on the 2024 international design competition.

3rd Place: Engineering Design CO2 Powered Dragster – Meav Swank (Soph.)
– Students create and race a prototype CO2 dragster based on scientific principles and 2024 technical specifications.