The students in Lakefront High School's Technology Student Association chapter have been putting in long hours after school for months — designing, coding, building, and presenting. This spring, that work is paying off. The club has qualified for the Washington State TSA Conference in Spokane, and they're going in with a full roster of competitors.
WHAT IS TSA?
The Technology Student Association is a national career and technical student organization with over 250,000 members across the country. Founded in 1978, TSA is built around STEM education — science, technology, engineering, and math — and gives middle and high school students the chance to compete in hands-on technical events that mirror real-world challenges in engineering, design, coding, and more.
Washington State hosts its annual TSA conference each spring, bringing together chapters from across the state to compete in dozens of events before the top finishers advance to the national conference.
HOW THE LAKEFRONT CHAPTER WORKS
Lakefront High's TSA chapter meets twice a week in the school's engineering and computer science lab. Members choose their competitive events at the start of the year and spend the semester developing their projects with guidance from faculty advisor Mr. Delgado and peer mentors from the senior class.
"TSA isn't just about winning," says chapter president Amara Osei, a junior. "It's about actually building something. You have to research it, design it, test it, and then stand in front of judges and explain every decision you made. That's real engineering."
The chapter currently has 34 active members across grades 9 through 12, making it one of the larger STEM clubs at Lakefront. New members are welcome at any point in the year.
EVENTS HEADING TO SPOKANE
The Lakefront chapter will be competing in a range of events at states. On the engineering side, members are entering Structural Engineering, where teams design and test load-bearing structures, and Flight Endurance, a classic TSA event involving hand-launched gliders. The coding team is competing in Software Development, building a fully functional application from a prompt given at the start of the competition.
Other competitors are entering Graphic Design, Video Game Design, and the Chapter Team events, which require coordinated teamwork across multiple members. One team is also competing in the Prepared Speech event, where students deliver a researched presentation on a technology topic.
"We have a really strong Video Game Design team this year," says Mr. Delgado. "And our Structural Engineering group has been testing their design every week. I'm proud of all of them."
THE ROAD TO SPOKANE
Qualifying for states required the chapter to submit project documentation and compete at the regional level earlier this year. Several Lakefront members placed in the top three at regionals, earning automatic bids. Others qualified through portfolio review.
The state conference runs April 24–26 at the Spokane Convention Center. Top finishers in each event will advance to the national TSA conference in Washington, D.C. this summer.
The Lakefront TSA chapter welcomes new members each fall. Students interested in joining can contact Mr. Delgado in Room 214 or visit the club's page on the Lakefront High website.