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    Titans Win at Math Engineering Science Competition
    Posted 3/31/21

    Kennedy High School students competed in the divisional MESA (Math Engineering Science Achievement) resulting in several awards and teams advancing to the Regionals. A summary of the results and project videos are below:

     

     

    MESA Machine: A "Rube Goldberg" contraption. Competitors had to send a ball through at least six simple machines and then start a car with a blast of air to go a predetermined number of feet. You have to see these videos to believe this. 

    *1st place, 9-10: Hendrix Leung, Guatam Rampur, Keanu Lim Video: MESA Machine: Hendrix, Guatam, Keanu 

    *2nd place, 9-10: Sarmila Jagadeesan, Bhairavi Sentilkumar Video: MESA Machine: Bhairavi, Sarmila (run starts at 2:20)

     

    Civil Structures: Build a bridge and it gets crushed. Judged by strength to weight ratio (weight to crush over weight of bridge). 45 Competitors overall.

    Video: High School Bridges - MESA 2021 @ CSUEB - YouTube

    Grades 9-10

    *1st Place: Erin Banchieri, Prachiti Sabnis (1:17 in video). Stength ratio: 1258.6 (their bridge held up 1258 times its weight)

    *4th place: Eri Luong  (3:29 in video) Strength ratio: 662

    *11th place: Dylan Chang Liao, Saket Tipnis  (4:26 in video) Strength ratio: 401

     

    Grades 11-12

    *1st Place: Zack Hamilton, Jay Ma, Harman Singh (5:45 in video) Strength ratio: 1612

    *5th Place: Serena Chen, Emili Liu, Angela Wu (4:50 in video) Strength ratio: 765

     

    National Engineering Design Competition: This is the premiere event, and the only event that has a state and national competition. JFK Titans have won this event at the divisional level for the past 4 years. We made it to state two years ago and would have made it last year, I think, were it not for the pandemic closing down the competition. 

     

    *1st place: Aathavan Sentilkumar, Sri Guddanti, Mark Haddad. 

    This team, along with Gabriel Gomes, have won at the division level three years running. This year, they had a STUNNING application: a drone that hunts out arable land and plants seeds. Blew the judges away. 

    Videos: 

    Demo: Drone Flight Demo w/ Seed Dispenser - YouTube

    Drone view: NEDC Drone View: Aathavan, Sri, Mark

    3D model of results: NEDC 3d Terrain Model: Aathavan, Sri, Mark

     

    *4th place: Curtis Hu, Bikram Bains, Kaavya Chandrasekhar 

    Just barely touched out of 3rd place, with a terrific application assisting the hearing impaired. 

    Video of prototype pitch: Prototype Pitch Curtis, Bikram, Kaavya - YouTube

     

    *6th place: Kavish Kartha, Nathan Jay, Shanmukh Gakkani, Dylan Lin

    First timers with a heart beat monitor and a great technical pitch: NEDC Heart Monitor: Nathan, Kavish, Shanmukh, Dylan

     

    Coding Solutions: Students wrote and fixed PYTHON programs:

    *3rd place: Matthew Li and Arif Ali

    *4th place: Serena Chen and Angela Wu

    *11th place: Gabriel Gomes and Mark Haddad

     

    Math Escape Room: Students have to solve complex problems for time.

    *1st place--Aathavan Sentilkumar, Sri Guddant, Mark Haddad

    *6th place--Serena Chen, Emily Liu, Angela Wu