The Technology Student Association (TSA) is a club that puts in large amounts of work into their projects every Wednesday afternoon. Marietta High School is a part of the Georgia TSA Chapter, an organization focused on developing skills in STEM among students. In TSA, there are competitions in which a product is completed throughout the school year, whether it be a physical model, lines of code, a presentation, and lots more, that corresponds with a certain set of criteria listed by the competition they’ve entered. For example, the Photographic Technology competition has the participant take photos based on the theme given, asking for documentation explaining what went into the photo-taking process and the story behind it. Competitions can be individual, with a partner, or a larger group depending on the type. In March of every school year, the club goes to the Student Leadership Conference at the Classic Center of Athens, Georgia. Schools from all over the state go to the three-day competition to present their projects to judges or compete on-site.
At the end of the conference, there is an awards ceremony where state finalists are congratulated. Of the competitions, three Marietta teams were state finalists, with one of them placing second after competing on-site.
One competition this year that made it to state finalists was Fashion Design. The premise of the competition is to create a wearable design, document the process, and then make the garment for someone to model. The participants in this competition were Ella Salter (12), Margaret Black (12), Olivia Granier (11), and Ada Chesney (12).
The second competition that made it to state finalist was Promotional Design. The competition is described as, “using computerized graphic communications layout and design skills to produce a promotional resource packet” by the official TSA website. Sydney Martinez (12) was the sole person in this competition, showing her strengths in graphic design.
The group competition to place second was the Systems Control Technology team. The idea of this competition is to create a solution to a problem given at the meeting. Then, they have to make a computer-controlled mechanical model that can solve said problem, along with instructions for the judges and evaluators to work with. The participants in this competition were Kalyan Piovesan-Toussaint (12), Ty Heinlen, and Ellen Gbolade (9).
With the conclusion of the State Leadership conference came the end of TSA for MHS this school year. Follow MHS’s TSA chapter on Instagram at @mhs.spe to receive updates to join next school year.
