Technology Student Association makes life fun after school

MATTAWA — It used to be that staying after school meant you were in trouble. That may be true today for some students in the Wahluke School District but not for most.

Wahluke offers all kinds of after-school activities other than sports. The elementary schools have an intramural program of classes that teach anything from gardening to guitar playing.

The STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) staff has a program that attracts youngsters and is growing – the Technology Student Association. It’s designed to help students test themselves on what they’ve been learning in the STEM classes.

Arthur Morken, one of the adult leaders of the TSA program, expects up to 60 members this year. They’ll be involved in TSA and/or VEX robotics competitions around the state. The first will be a VEX robotics tournament at Wahluke on Oct. 17.

“It’s not about winning and losing,” said second-year member Karen Arellanos. “It’s about having the experience, learning teamwork and learning more about technology.”

On Karen’s word, four friends joined TSA this year. Karina Cruz, Megan Castellanos, Daisy Soto and Natalia Nevarez are excited about the coming year. They look forward to the first Wednesday of the month after school so much they don’t notice time while they are at TSA.

“My parents thought it was a good idea for me to learn to build things using technology,” Megan said.

All five girls took the sixth-grade introduction to technology class. The same class is being offered in sixth grade this year under the name Gateway to Technology.

The five seventh-grade friends are like-minded. They are all better than 3.0 students, and they are all planning joining the workforce.

“I joined TSA because I was looking for more options for a career path,” Megan said.

The four new girls joined also because Karen appeared to enjoy TSA. They way Karen described it, the TSA sounded like fun. Natalia said she was attracted by the competitions.

Karen attended four of them last year. The school district covered the cost on three. Her parents came up with the $175 she needed to go to the TSA state conference in Bellevue.

“It sounded like they had fun,” Karina said.

Natalia corrected one misconception about technology. It’s not only about iPads and cell phones.

“It’s about everything that helps us with our lives,” she said.

Megan added: “It’s about building robots, but it’s also about writing, about digital photography and digital designing.”

Megan noted her brothers, who have graduated from college, have a hobby of fixing their own cars and friends’ cars. They use digital designing sometimes, she said.

Karen and Natalia are on the same robot team. The other three girls are on three different teams. They will compete against each other and other schools.

“Even if we lose we’ll be winning,” Megan said.

The goal of each team is build a robot that can fling a ball through a triangle-shaped hoop.

Check that. The goal is to learn how to put a ball through a triangle-shaped hoop using technology. The robots will be tested on Saturday, Oct. 1 at the Wahluke Junior High VEX Robotics Tournament.