Marksmen Sweep TEAMS Competition

This summer, St. Mark’s TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) squads won big at the annual Best in Nation competition. The Junior/Senior squad led by Kevin Wu ’16 won first place for their prepared presentation, was a finalist (Top 10) for their essay, and achieved fifth place overall. The Freshman/Sophomore squad led by Rohin Maganti ’17 won third place in the prepared presentation event, first place in the problem-solving contest, was a finalist for their essay, and first place overall to win Best in Nation for the freshman/sophomore competition.

TEAMS is an annual STEM competition for high school students, challenging them to work collaboratively and apply their knowledge in practical, creative ways to solve everyday engineering challenges. The theme of this year’s competition was “The Power of Engineering" and focused on alternative and renewable energy sources. The competition consisted of three events: an essay on biofuels submitted prior to the conference, a prepared presentation on town-scale renewable energy infrastructure to a set of judges, and a turbine construction and analysis problem-solving event. Recognition was given to the top 10 teams in each event, trophies were given for the top three winners in each event, and the Best in Nation awards were given to the overall winners in each division. 

St. Mark’s Junior/Senior team included Kevin Wu ’16, Burke Garza '15, Raymond Guo '15, Tim Skapek ’16, Kunal Dixit '15, James Zhang '15, and Tim O'Meara ’16. The Freshman/Sophomore team included Thomas Zhang ’17, Liam Sohn ’17, Rahul Maganti ’17, Rohin Maganti ’17, Andrew Chuka ’17, Kevin Choi ’17, Daran Zhao ’17, and Eric Shang ’17.

St. Mark's School of Texas began competing in the TEAMS competition in 1990, with George Hague as the TEAMS coach. The coach for TEAMS beginning in 2003 is Ken Owens ’89.