Penn engineering students headed to nationals

Five teams from Penn High School qualified for the nationals in the Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science competition. The nationals are scheduled for June 28-July 1 in Nashville, Tenn.

Sponsored by Penn High School Math instructor Becky Tagliaferri, Penn students excelled in the regional TEAMS competition. Each team consists of eight students working together to solve an engineering problem. The regional competition has two parts, the awards were for part one, and part two is a written/design portion.

“I am so proud of these students and their desire to learn about engineering,” Tagliaferri said of Penn’s national qualifiers. “This really says a lot about our math/science program here at Penn.”

Penn’s TEAMS state champs in the 11/12 division – Megha Devaraj (team captain), Jack Bao, David Kim, Matt Shan, Edward Atkinson, Olivia Mercurio, Kanika Arora and Yejee Oh lead the Kingsmen contingent in the national competition.

Other Penn qualifiers for the nationals include:

Team E (fourth in the state): Jewon Oh (team captain), Peter Jung, Presto George, Riley Vreeke, Tim Porsche, Nick Thurin, Hannah McGinness, Michelle Tapp.

Team B (fifth in the state): Josh Zhao (team captain), Rachel Casetti, Nick Casetti, Baker Nasser, Chris Yun, Muqsit Buchh, Audrey Murray, Eric Pfrender.

Team C (12^th in the state): Julia Kwak (team captain), Peter Rutkowski, Vishal Patel, Andrew Bernard, Annaliza Canda, Mason Lee, Alex Dobbins, Monesh Devireddy.

Team A (fifth in the state): Tina Liu (team captain), Chelsea Chen, Rebecca Yuan, Keegan Palonis, Leah Ingle, Celine Wang, Amy Bernard, Priya Chaudhary.