Specifications & Resources

MESA Design Challenge Specifications

MESA Day is our annual statewide competition. Middle and high schools enrolled in MESA will bring teams to present their design in response to the following engineering design challenges. Individual awards are presented to teams that place first through sixth place in each of the design challenges and trophies are presented to the schools that place first through third overall.

MESA Day is a celebration of STEM, and in addition to bringing students together to present their projects and compete ,there are various STEM activities from our industry, non-profit, and higher education partners for student engagement and continued learning.

To ensure a positive experience for everyone our director has drafted the following message about Student Expectations and Mediation Process for MESA Day.

 

For this project, student teams will identify an individual or group who experiences some type of inequity (i.e., a user). Teams will employ human-centered design practices to engineer a solution. Teams must use a coding component as the main component of their design. Teams must use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) in a community-centered capacity for their project. UN-SDG provides a broad view of global efforts to promote equity. Aligning to a goal will guide students in narrowing their focus to help their community. Team should achieve this by selecting a SDG Goal and identifying the SDG Target (i.e., 1.1, 1.2) the project is meant to address.

 

 

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Students will design and label a model and academic poster depicting a proposed Sustainability project for a student selected site in their community. The model and academic poster will be used to conduct a short presentation to judges about the need for the project, how the project works, the expected impact, and relevant data analysis.

 

 

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Students will design a device to launch regulation Corn Hole bean bags at a regulation Corn Hole board to score 21 points in the fewest number of throws. Students will also be required to submit their Poster during specification check for review and scoring.

 

 

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Students will design a remote-controlled robot designed to disable an opponent or push an opponent out of bounds. Students will also be required to submit their Design Poster for review and scoring.

23-24 MESA Attack Vehicle

 

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Team will design a helicopter that is made 100% out of paper, stay in the air for as long as possible, and land on a target. High School teams must also have a payload that weighs, at minimum, 10 grams. Students will also be required to submit their design poster ahead of MESA Day for review and scoring.

 

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Students will participate in teams to solve a cyber crime using virtual and physical clues. Teams will need to solve cybersecurity problems to find the perpetrators. This event will be done live at MESA Day.

 

 

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Teams will demonstrate teamwork and creative problem-solving skills by working collaboratively to design, construct and test a given objective/device within a specific period of time.

 

 

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Teams will demonstrate teamwork and creative problem solving skills by working collaboratively to design, construct and test a given objective/device within a specific period of time.

 

 

Resources