Alex Etergino, Reporter
@gino_courant
On February 14th, the T.E.A.M.S, (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) competition took place. The competition consists of an essay, multiple choice questions, and a Design and Builds section. The TEAMS competition is a competition that all AP Physics 1 and AP Physics C students have the opportunity to compete in. The team will have eight teams, each with four students, for a total of 32 students competing from NCHS this year. The results of the competition are not yet available, but will be coming out sometime in April.
The essay section of the competition is based on an engineering problem that forces the teams to work together on crafting an answer to the given problem. Students from the NCHS team believe that the essay part of the section is one of their strongest sections, as they have predominantly done well in it in past years. During practice sessions, AP Physics teacher Paul Reid said that “All members participate in a practice session where the teams get to work together and collaborate on their essay submission.”
The multiple choice section of the competition is a series of questions about the topic ‘Engineering and Everyday Devices’, where the students work in teams of four to answer the questions. Students must use concepts from physics, chem and math to help them solve the challenging problems that are given to them. Senior captain Julia Paine explained how they are getting ready for this section, “We had one practice session where all of the teams met up and worked on a practice problem set.”
The final section of the competition is the Design and Builds section. This portion of the competition gives the students a limited amount of supplies and a challenge to build something specific, with certain testing criteria. This section allows the students to get exposure to real-world engineering. “This competition gives me an opportunity to see what kind of problems engineers might face in the real world”, Julia said.
For the building section, the NCHS team had to build a prototype for a luggage transport system using a cardboard box and various other materials. They created a door that opened and shut automatically, allowing a ping pong ball to pass through it. However, the multiple choice section did not go as well as the team had hoped. “I think that the building portion of the competition went well, but the multiple choice was challenging,” Julia said. “We had to work together to figure out how to solve a handful of the problems.”
This competition gives the students an opportunity to go out and see how they compare to other teams nationwide. Although the team feels proud of what they accomplished preparing for the competition, they still have higher aspirations to make it to further rounds. “The high school has traditionally done very well in the competition, earning top 10 national rankings multiple times, Best in State, and a 4th place finish nationally in 2022”, Mr. Reid said. New Canaan High School is hoping to finally break through and make a jump to first place nationally this year. Stay tuned for the results in April.
