Garriga Engineering Challenge team headed to state April 8

 
The Bishop Garriga Middle Preparatory School Engineering Challenge Team brought home a first place from the Destination Imagination Regional Tournament and is headed to state competition in Lubbock, Texas on April 8. The team of Austin Frazier, Sophia Talbott and Nicolas Urbina designed, built and tested different types of structures made of balsa wood and glue that could only weigh up to 50 grams and hold weight on a structure tester.
 
This was the first time the Diocese of Corpus Christi had two campuses send their challenge solutions to the regional meet. St. John Paul II High School had three teams compete in the Project Outreach challenge, a service learning challenge designed to engage students in public service to address real-life community issues.  The three teams chose to help reach a compromise among an Australian mining company and a community in Mindoro, Philippines; the Jewish population in Iran; and the persecuted Christians in Syria.
 
The Mind Miners team of Aaron Garcia, Armando Hernandez, Julie Hernandez, Maximilian Kimmeland and Sara Landawon placed third. Two other teams from the high school also competed; The D.R.E.A.M. team made up of Javier Castillo, Jaz Garza, Jill Moore and Jonathan Ruiz and The Fury team of Madelyn Burton, Julianna Gomez, Timothy Nye and Andrew Reyna. All team members from St. John Paul II high School are freshmen.
 
Also competing from Bishop Garriga Middle Preparatory School was the Technical Challenge team of Colette Leal, Hannah Reynolds and John Wilhelm. This team completed tasks by using engineering, research, strategic planning and related skills. They designed and constructed a stage, performed a story that had two technical effects, a horn in the car and a water sprayer for the car wash.
 
“The diocese began the S(cience) T(echonology) R(eligion) E(enginerring) A(rts) M(ath) push in all campuses and this is a great way for kids to hit all targets,” said teacher Nieves Frazier, Destination Imagination Team Manager for both schools. Frazier recently an award for excellence at the Celebration of Catholic Schools gala and this was what his grant intended to do.