- June 10, 2026
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Creating a children’s picture book for Technology Student Association competition might have been more difficult than a group of Dr. Mona Jain Middle School seventh graders expected.
Gracie Nichols, Vittoria Ferrisi Alvarez and Sawyer Nowicki had to use hand-drawn art, digital design and hands-on testing to finish their book — “Snowball’s Ice Incident.”
"The picture book is intended to teach young children the importance of friendship and teamwork when unexpected challenges occur,” Alvarez said. “In the story, Snowball (a penguin) faces trouble because he gets tired after playing all these different games and while he's sleeping, his iceberg starts to break. He needs his friends to help him rebuild it.”
The team placed second in the Children's Stories event at the state competition, which was held March 25-28 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Orlando.
They, along with other schools and students in East County, are preparing to compete in the TSA national competition June 22–26 at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Washington, D.C.
The theme of this event was to include rhyming and repetitive text in order to help young children develop language and memory skills. The students tested the book at the Lakewood Ranch YMCA by reading to kids from 3 to 6 years old.
Other students faced their own challenges. A team of four students from Braden River High School — led creatively by Sofia Taggart and supported by Angela Vetter, Hannah Thai and Gabriella Smith — explained how the Fashion Design and Technology event led them to build a garment from scratch and then tell the story behind it. The theme was "Villain Era.”
“When we first thought of it, all of us thought of using black, purple, green or red,” Taggart said. “The black is what stuck out and so we drifted away from that and decided to go with the opposite, which was white. That gave us a more differentiated design.”
The students said the judges offered positive reassurance. When they mentioned adding snakes to their design, judges were quick to say it was perfect just as it is.
Also from Braden River High School is Matthew Mangin, who is competing alone in the Transportation Modeling event. The theme is “The Sky is Not the Limit” revolving around space exploration. Instead of doing something like a space ship, he decided to create a recreational vehicle for the moon. He first designed it on the computer and then 3D printed the vehicle out of plastic while making the moon out of plaster.
“Not only does it have to stand out, it's got to capture the attention of the audience,” Mangin said. “It's trying to find a balance between not too obscure but not too recognizable.”
The judges told Mangin they don’t believe the wheels he had designed would work on the moon, so he is looking into wheels from previous space vehicles that might work better for the project.
For the Digital Video Production event at the state competition, a team from Lakewood Ranch High School placed first. Team members were Cooper Kelly, Kaden Oda, Alexander Hong, Paul Jordan, Vaibhav Akkinepally and Rishi Thakker.
The theme was “A Twist in Time” with the goal of showing a historical figure in the present. They decided to use George Washington and have him play football for the New England Patriots, because he is in fact a patriot.
Kelly, who dressed up as George Washington and acted in the video, said the uniqueness of the idea is what he believes separated them from others in the same event.
“We have him as the quarterback, that's like the leadership role in football, and that's who George Washington is, a leader,” Ods said. “We incorporated him into that, taking that role and bringing the team to a victory.”
