As soon as they stepped inside the Sheraton Hotel outside Greensboro, the handful of East students were greeted by the scene of hundreds of teenagers in suits, running around, scrambling to print material and checking into their rooms.
“You just feel a sense of unity, almost, because everyone is thinking the same things you’ve been thinking… and everyone is ready to compete,” said senior Jessica Mathew, secretary of East’s chapter of the Technology Student Association (TSA). “[It’s] one of my favorite parts.”
East’s TSA competed in the state competition March 26-28, in-person for the first time in three years due to both cancellations and COVID-19 protocols, after advancing in regionals. They participated in various technology and leadership-related individual and team events from CAD Engineering to Promotional Design. Several students and groups placed highly, including earning first place in Digital Video Production and Technology Problem Solving.
“[At] the competition, you’re going to meet lots of other people and see different perspectives on how they tackle the same events [and] their situation,” said club president, senior Kabir Grewal. “It’s an eye-opening experience;you get to meet lots of people from different backgrounds doing different things.”
Prior to the state competition, competitors must first prepare and practice arduously and qualify in regionals, either by project submissions or real-time competitions. Qualifications are event-specific, as top-placing individuals and teams, not schools, advance. With the gap between the two events, students were able to make drastic revisions and improvements based on judge feedback.
“The really great thing about regionals is [that] it’s kind of like a practice round,” Mathew said. “That was kind of our opportunity to really mess around, [to] be as creative as we wanted, to see what was acceptable… and [use] the feedback we got from judges for states… But the time between regionals and states is so small… [so] you have to work quicker.
Senior Yahan Yang, whose team of five placed third state-wide in the Board Game Design event, recalls their team’s development following the regional competition.
“We made the game… the week of submission… [but] we had experience, so we were able to do it,” Yang said. “And for [the state competition], we started… a lot earlier because we learned… that if we’re going to try… to place and if we’re going to try to make it better, we can’t start the week of [the competition] again. So we definitely made improvements on that.”
This reflects the larger need for self-accountability from students in managing their progress and projects, due to TSA’s student-led and non-systematic nature.
“It’s just about working hard, being disciplined, working well before the competition and really owning it yourself,” Grewal said.
While this effort, devotion and responsibility are necessary for success, he acknowledges that, even so, the results are not always ideal.
“You’re more happy with yourself, knowing that you did realistically all you could in your event,” Grewal said. “Sometimes you don’t place; there’s really good competition in the state [and] there’s going to be even better competition in the national competition. But knowing that you did realistically all you could have… it feels good, [and] you’re at peace with yourself.”
Photo courtesy of Yahan Yang
