With about 3 more weeks to go, students are already preparing their projects and minds for Pre-MESA Day 2016.

Every year in March for the past 45+ years, the University of Southern California (USC) hosts the first stage of  MESA competitions for students from grades 6-12. Several schools have also paired up with USC MESA and will attend this event as well. This is a great opportunity for students to engage in friendly competition while exploring the campus of a potential future university choice.  

Students began to brainstorm and collect their ideas to build the best project they can. Whether it be a small race car made out of a couple of CDs and a mouse trap or a shoe box filled with cotton balls to save the lives of eggs, our students are determined to bring home a few first place medals for HMSA.

Students here at HMSA are preparing to show off their EggXpress containers, Civil Structures, Mousetrap Cars, Speak Easy presentations, and other projects. EggXpress is a competition where students must make a small package that would be able to protect the eggs inside if thrown from a 6 story building. For Civil Structures, students are required to build bridges made from balsa wood with the highest strength to weight ratio. The mousetrap cars set no limit for the students in regards to what can be used to make it; the only rule is that the only power source must come from an unmodified Victor brand mousetrap. Speak Easy requires students to prepare a presentation and poster board on a topic that is affecting the world currently.

MESA is not all just about building projects; there is a math portion, too. After all, the M in MESA stands for Mathematics. Every student who attends Pre-MESA Day is also required to compete in a math competition. This year, the math test will be composed of practice SAT problems to prepare 6th-11th graders  for the actual SAT. The 12th graders must compete in a group test against 12th graders from other schools. The questions are difficult, but propel students to use their brain and apply prior knowledge to solve them.

Sophomore Matthew G. shared his MESA project idea and jokingly stated his reason: ¨I’m going to be making an EggXpress project for MESA day because I am worried. I am worried because the rate of eggs dying has sky rocketed in the past 3 years, so I hope my box will reduce or stop these horrible acts of eggs cracking.¨

Adding onto Matthew’s response, sophomore Jeffrey D. said, ¨I am doing my MESA project on the EggXpress because I’ve done it before in the 6th and 7th grade and it was relatively easy. I would have liked to have done the bridge also, but maybe I’ll save that for next year. Oh, and eggs deserve to live. I gotta help those eggs out in any way I can.¨