MESA Regionals Competition Update

Hi Friends,

On April 12th, MESA held their Regional Competition at Contra Costa College where our members Ryan Mitra, Justin Parker, and Dilain Saparamadu helped volunteer. We were also joined by Rodney and Jane Pimentel, whom many of you know very well.

The MESA Regional Competition day is an event-filled day where middle-schoolers and high-schoolers from around the area come to compete in variety of competitions ranging from Plane Gliders, to Health and Science competitions, to Rocket Launchers!

We helped with the Health and Science competition where high school students brought in hand crafted models of the CRISPR gene-editing technique to be judged for accuracy, requirement fulfillment, and creativity. Our volunteers helped verify these models’ requirements as part of the judging process in the competition. Some creative designs from the students can be seen below!

The second portion of the competition consisted of a timed group test where students answered questions and solved puzzles related to genetics. Our volunteers had to tap back into their high school knowledge to help grade and judge the submissions.

This event is one of the many ways we are partnering with MESA to give back to those that may have trouble accessing STEM resources, something RJ had set out to do as well. If this may be something you are interested in doing, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] or respond to this email and we can connect you with the right people. Volunteering opportunities range from helping and judging competitions, like this one, to helping a teacher out in their classroom.

With gratitude,

Friends of RJ