Congrats to the California MESA National Engineering Design Challenge winners!

The California teams won second place overall in both middle and high school divisions.

Isbell Middle School seventh graders Samanta Ivanez and Brandon Arana of the UC Santa Barbara MESA center beat out dozens of other middle school teams to compete in the national championship in Philadelphia in June.

The high school winners are Bolsa Grande High School eleventh grader David Chuong and twelfth graders Duy Pham and Danny Vo of the UC Irvine MESA center.

The teamsĀ had spent the better part of the school year designing, developing and building electronic devices that solve real-world problems. These hands-on competitions help MESA students connect the math and science principals they learn in the classroom to real-world application.