Bloomsburg High students finish among nation’s best at TSA Nationals
Three Bloomsburg High School students traveled to this national event to compete against over 6500 high school technology students from across the nation with their TSA chapter advisor, Kirk Marsh
Representing the Bloomsburg chapter were senior Marc-Alexi Dobbins and juniors Owen Chen and Pret Patel. The trio competed against more than 6,500 high school students from across the country while accompanied by TSA advisor Kirk Marshall. They earned their place at nationals after advancing through regional and state competitions and spent countless after-school hours preparing for one of the nation’s most competitive STEM events.
TSA is an organization of more than 300,000 elementary, middle, and high school students enrolled in technology education courses. Through more than 30 STEM-related competitive events, students develop leadership, problem-solving, critical-thinking, and engineering skills while applying classroom learning to real-world challenges in communications, power, energy, transportation, engineering, manufacturing and construction.
This year’s conference brought together students from 47 states and U.S. territories, as well as TSA chapters from Germany, South Korea, and Scotland.
The Bloomsburg team of Pret Patel and Owen Chen finished 5th in the Manufacturing Prototype category, where participants work as a team to solve a design problem using Computer Integrated Manufacturing to create a functioning model. This year’s theme was to design a marble maze or a puzzle box. Along with the functioning prototype, teams needed to document the design process and include a full set of dimensioned CAD drawings.
Semifinalists give a product “sales pitch” and demonstrate their prototype to a panel of judges. Among 135 high school teams competing in the event, Patel and Chen earned an impressive fifth-place national finish.
In Transportation Modeling, Marc-Alexi Dobbins researched, designed and produced a scale model of a vehicle that represented this year’s annual theme, The Sky is Not the Limit- Next-gen space travel. His project included a detailed design portfolio featuring vehicle specifications, construction photographs, production commentary and technical illustrations. As a semifinalist, Dobbins also presented his work to the judges during an interview before earning an outstanding fourth-place national finish among 129 competitors.
Chen and Dobbins also competed in the CO₂ Dragster event, designing and manufacturing miniature dragsters at BHS using computer-aided design software, a CNC router and a 3D printer. Strong performances in the time trials nearly advanced both racers into the 16-car elimination bracket. Dobbins narrowly missed the cut by finishing 18th, while Chen placed 23rd among more than 198 competitors.
Through TSA, students transform classroom knowledge into real-world innovation while developing the technical, leadership, and teamwork skills that prepare them for future careers in engineering, manufacturing and technology.