Tucumcari STEM team earns grant

Tucumcari High School's STEM team is one of 10 in the United States that landed a prestigious $7,500 grant and other support from the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam program to build a problem-solving, technological invention.

The team's mentor, THS faculty member Tommy Evans, said he and its members knew about the grant about a month ago, but it wasn't officially announced until last week.

Evans said he was informed by email of his team's selection.

"I almost had tears in my eyes when were were selected," he said during an interview with several team members in a schoolroom with electronics parts for varying projects strewn about. "We were high-fiving each other."

"I thought I was overreacting for a minute," team co-captain Sariah Mardo said of the announcement. "I was jumping up and down and giving a high five."

"It was a relief, after all this work, that we got in," said another co-captain, Aaron Chand.

Other team members are Nolan Ryen, Shane Jaggers, Justin Keith, Bailey Jones Salvador, MiKayla Klinger, Rachel Mardo and Morisa Evans.

The Tucumcari team seeks to develop an alert system for impending accidents for agricultural workers.

Evans acknowledged the prototype is similar to an alert system the team proposed last year for the New Mexico Governor's STEM Challenge, but it has evolved.

"It's much different. They've learned a lot in a year," he said.

Tucumcari was the only New Mexico school to receive the grant this year and only the fourth in the state in the program's nearly 20-year history.

Leigh Estabrooks, Lemelson-MIT's invention education officer, stated in an email the annual contest "is quite competitive."

"We work with hundreds of teachers each year winnowing down the applicant pool," she said.

"This MIT thing is like the top of the pyramid," Evans said. "I know of other instructors who've been trying for 15 years and haven't got there. It's really tough. A lot of the mentors (with other teams) have master's or doctorates in engineering. We are the history teacher with a bunch of students, just working our tails off to do what we can."

Evans first attributed his team's success to a good and feasible idea for an invention. Second, he said team members have good work habits, even with their other commitments to family, employers or other extra-curricular activities at the school.

"I didn't have to beg them to come in," he said. "They have other things going on in their lives, but sometimes they would come in for three days in a row to work. They treated it like a job."

The Lemelson-MIT project isn't the only one on the Tucumcari team's plate. It is preparing for the New Mexico Governor's STEM Challenge in a few weeks, and it will compete in several robotics competitions.

The Tucumcari team soon will set up a blog and social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram to document their progress with the Lemelson-MIT project.

The team's prototype will be showcased during a technical review in February by Massachusetts Institute of Technology officials in Tucumcari.

The team will present its final prototype during EurekaFest at MIT on June 12-14.

Because of the travel involved in the event and other competitions, the team is launching fundraisers to help defray those expenses. More details can be found on its Diamondback_STEM page on Facebook.

Other Lemelson-MIT grant winners this year:

• Canadian Valley Technology Center (El Reno, Oklahoma)

• Chicago State University Pre-Freshman Program in Engineering and Science (Chicago)

• Enloe High School (Raleigh, North Carolina)

• iPrep Academy North (Miami)

• Mira Loma High School (Sacramento, California)

• Oswego East High School (Oswego, Illinois)

• Rolling Robots (Rolling Hills Estates, California)

• SOAR Early College High School (Lancaster, California)

• Sylmar Biotech Health and Engineering Magnet High School (Sylmar, California)

"Our work supports students of all backgrounds in developing problem-solving skills that will be of benefit in their college and career endeavors, and in their personal lives," Estabrooks said of the InvenTeam program in a news release. "These are students who will invent our future."