Costa Mesa High School (CMHS) students were awarded the 2024 Bolt Pride Award for their device design and team spirit at the 2024 STEM on the Sidelines competition hosted by the Los Angeles Chargers, Ducommun, Aerostructures, and the University of California, Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering. The CMHS team, dubbed the Bolt Up Baddies, placed second overall and received $2,000 in grants for the school’s science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program.

Teams from Early College High School and Newport Harbor High School (NHHS) were among the 20 high school teams from Southern California that participated in the annual event at the Chargers’ new training facility, The Bolt in El Segundo.

For the competition, each team was required to design and build a football-themed device that used Arduino-based coding to complete two tasks, a speed task and an agility task around cones. 

In addition to a brainstorming phase, NMUSD students conducted research and designed prototypes while learning and programming in Arduino, an open-source platform to create interactive electronic objects. (In the past, many teams used other types of microprocessors, such as VEX or an RC-based program, but the limitation to Arduino added a new layer of difficulty.)  

This was the sixth year CMHS entered the competition, the fourth for Costa Mesa High School seniors Aubrey Spallone and Kayla Stanley. Also on the Bolt Up Baddies team, advised by teachers Racine Cross and Quang Nguyen, were Britany Escobedo, Isabella Im, and Victoria Rios. CMHS won the Ducommun Award for perseverance in 2019 and has consistently placed among the top three teams overall, winning first-place honors in 2020 and 2021.

Spallone and Stanley have been competing in STEM-related competitions since they were in seventh grade, thanks to the strong Project Lead the Way (PLTW) partnership with Newport-Mesa Unified School District (NMUSD). 

Early College High School teacher Dante Bui’s Tech Titans included Sarah Campos, Clare Devlin, Yuliana Garcia Rojas, and Anthony Lo. Ashley Castillo Gomez could not attend the event but was part of the preparation process. “In previous years, we’ve had setbacks with parts burning or disqualifications. We were happy to get some consistency this year and build a foundation for future teams,” said Bui.

Making their debut entry into the competition were NHHS students Wyatt Atkins, Penelope Barto, Maddie Bui, William McCarthy, and Matthew Tarnow. According to the team’s advisor, teacher Tiffany Hou, the students encountered several challenges regarding software and hardware, using a 3D printer to create custom parts. “The night before the competition, the Sailors were almost ready to throw in the towel when their motor blew out, leaving them with a nonfunctional robot. With great perseverance, the team showed up the next day at The Bolt, ready to repair their robot and seize the day,” she said.

The STEM on the Sidelines competition is a challenging opportunity for students to innovate, learn perseverance, and showcase the transformative power of hands-on STEM learning and collaboration. 

NMUSD recognizes the importance of a strong STEM foundation with the PLTW curriculum offered across all elementary grade levels. With hands-on, high-quality STEM instruction as early as Transitional Kindergarten, NMUSD helps students develop critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills needed to thrive in today’s increasingly complex world.

 The STEM foundations learned in the early grades can be applied to a variety of Career Technical Education programs in middle and high school. Early College High School offers MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) courses that meet the requirements for admission to the University of California and California State University.