Lea este artículo en español aquí.
Park City High School students took home four first-place finishes at the state Technology Student Association — or TSA — competition in March. The wins earn them a trip to the national competition in Washington this June.
TSA is a national non-profit aiming to engage students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Over 300,000 students participate in TSA competitions and intracurricular activities annually.
Sophomore Tessa Wilkens, senior Rylan Betker and junior Henry Sergent’s project was to design an aquaponics system. It involves creating a sustainable, soil-free method where fish and growing plants live in one recirculating system.
Betker said instead of using artificial nutrients, aquaponics provides nutrients to the plant through the fish in the aquarium. The goal is to show the sustainability of the system.
“When we put fertilizer on our crops and stuff, that nutrient runs into our water systems, which acidifies our water. It causes algae blooms. It's not good for the environment,” he said. “Having a closed loop system where we reuse the water obviously uses less water, but it also keeps those nutrients out of our water systems.”
Betker created a 200-gallon tank of over 30 young trout for the system. For the past few months, it’s been growing tomato plants.
Wilkens said she joined the project because she’s interested in environmental studies and biology. She said the project also just looked cool. Wilkens’ friend named the fish.
“There's so many fish, and they all look the same,” Wilkens said. “So my friend was like, we're gonna call all of them Steve.”
Juniors Piper Petrole and Caroline Myers competed in the architecture competition. They had to design a home for a family of five, called a barndominium.
Petrole said the group focused on making a net-zero build by incorporating sustainable features. She wasalso in charge of making a physical model of the building. The team also created an online model and portfolio.
Myers said the project required long hours on the weekend and the girls were so excited when they won at the state competition.
“I remember just jumping up and down I was so excited, because we had worked so freaking hard on this, and to lose would have just been such a bummer,” she said.
It was sophomore Jack Gallagher’s first time competing at the TSA competition. His project was in flight endurance and he created a wood glider with a propeller powered by a rubber band for it.
Gallagher was the only competitor in the category at the state competition and said he’s excited to see how his work compares at nationals.
Juniors Max Esper, Gryphon Garcia, Lorenzo Grandjacquet and Alex Morrison designed and built a solar-powered car for their project. Esper said the group plans to work on improving the car ahead of nationals.
“We will be making it a lot faster, make it look a lot better,” he said. “There's going to be, you know, probably about 50 or more other competitors. So it's going to be a lot more difficult this time around.”
The other teams are also planning improvements. The aquaponics group is working on an automated robot arm to feed the fish in their system and Petrole plans to remake her team's home model.
Instructor Brad Gannon said Park City Education Foundation funding made many of these projects possible.
