The PA-TSA State Conference was held at the Seven Springs Ski Resort on April 9th to April 12th, and once again Harriton TSA had a strong showing, placing 1st overall in the competition.

Schools arrived at Seven Springs on Wednesday, April 9th, to drop off their projects and take a few tests in order to finalize. The conference officially began the next morning with the Opening Ceremony led by the PA-TSA State Officers. Harriton has had considerable representation this year on the officer team, with Max Hunt serving as the state Historian, Won Chung as the Reporter, and Sitara Soundararajan as the State President (Lower Merion students Mandi Farrah and Lisa Gardner serve as the Sergeant-at-Arms and Parliamentarian, respectively).

Thursday and Friday were packed with judging, finalist interviews, robotics competitions, “dragster” races, and multiple special interest sessions. These hour-long special interest sessions ranged from scavenger hunts and “Minute to win it” challenges, to annual updates from the student-run Membership and Environmental Committees.

On Thursday night, this year’s candidates for State Office, including multiple Harriton students once again, gave their 1.5-minute speeches to the delegates representing each school in attendance. This was followed by the annual Business meeting and voting on Friday night. Each school attending the conference chooses two representatives, or delegates, to vote on behalf of that TSA chapter. The voting for state officers is done by Scantron, which can be tallied up very quickly and reused in the case of run-off elections. Voting on other business, such as amendments to the TSA bylaws, is done by either standing or roll-call vote.

On Saturday morning, Harriton TSA’s diligent work paid off at the Award’s Ceremony; Harriton was called up to the stage an incredible number of times, taking home several 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place trophies. Just to name a few, Sitara Soundararajan won 1^st place in Biomedical Essay Contest; Andrew Wonnacott and Caleb Dixon won 1^st place in Technology Problem Solving; and Matt Bedenko, Caleb Dixon, and Jon Zauberman scored 1^st in Technology Bowl. A full list of the results can be found here.

Overall, Harriton TSA placed in the top 10 standings for the most events out of all high schools in Pennsylvania, coming in 1^st place overall at the conference! Sitara Soundararajan, who served as PA-TSA State President this year, commented, “After being part of the Harriton TSA Chapter for four years, I was ecstatic – both as a participating member and the state president – when we earned the title of State Champions this year. Considering the fact that this was our largest state conference in TSA history (with over 2,100 members attending), I’d say that’s pretty awesome.”

Congratulations TSA! Harriton wishes you luck at the National Conference in June!