HPE hosted a hackathon in collaboration with Curated Pathways to Innovation where teams of students were invited to design and build apps to address problems in their communities. The students spent several weeks working on their apps and presentations in the Curated Pathways platform and their community problems considered environmental wellness, social issues and safety concerns. This opportunity allowed students to build their technical skills as well as social as they coded, collaborated, and pitched their ideas in a professional setting. 

Students spent the morning “hacking” and finalizing their apps and presentations, ate lunch and then presented to a panel of judges. While they weren’t presenting, they had the opportunity to explore the HPE office while participating in activities like VR adventures, engaging in their Innovation lab, playing games and more. Judges assessed 27 teams and chose 3 winning teams. First place won $500 and laptops, second place won $250 and third won $100. All three winning teams were in 6th grade.Congratulations to all who participated!

On March 2nd a group of 8th graders from Ocala STEAM Academy participated in the first round of the San Jose MESA Center competitions. As a team, students were asked to create a “human-centered” design which would solve a problem faced by a client of their choice. A major criteria of the competition is that teams must incorporate the use of an Arduino. The Ocala team aimed to solve the navigation issues a family member faced as a result of optic atrophy. Out of five teams, Ocala won first place and will be moved on to the regional competition in April. 

In the regional competition,  the team faced four other teams from MESA centers across Northern California. Their design is a discrete sensor- based navigational aid for the visually impaired. The state competition took place on May 4th at UCLA. At the State Championship they faced off against the top teams from the Northern and Southern California regions. The 1st place winner from this competition will move on to the National competition in Arizona. 

At the state competition the team took first place in the poster, and 3rd place in the technical writing portion. The entire Ocala STEAM Academy community is proud of their efforts. They represented us well!