Engineering Club students competed at the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering (TAME) on Saturday, Feb. 4, at the University of Texas at Austin Welch Center. TAME is a competition that tests students by grade level in math and science. Jenny Zhang ‘19 won first place in the tenth grade category, and Samit Deshmukh ‘20 and his team won first in the design challenge. They will advance to the state competition held in Dallas.

“Honestly, it was surprising,” Deshmukh said. “I was really exhausted and just ready to go home. But when you figure out you win that completely changes your attitude and feels like a big accomplishment.”

The competition starts with a 75-minute long test consisting of 80 questions, and is followed by a design challenge. This year’s challenge was to create a satellite that had solar panels on it, and the satellite had to be able to fold open so the panels could catch sunlight. Along with Deshmukh’s team winning first, Zhang’s team won third in the design challenge, Sindhura Singh ‘17 and Himanshu Reddy ‘20 won second place in their grade level competitions, and Claire Mathieu ‘18 won third in her grade level competitions.

“The hardest part of the competition is being able to think under pressure,” Deshmukh said. “Because you get an 80-question test that you have to do in 75 minutes so it’s all about staying calm and pacing yourself. You just have to stay in the moment, and then when it comes to the engineering challenge, you have to put your best ideas forward because it’s all about working with the team, and the team that does the best, obviously moves on.”

If you’re interested in TAME, join Engineering Club, which meets every Friday in Mr. Doug Landers’ room, D2102, and from there you can sign up for TAME next year.