{"id":50943,"date":"2026-03-20T07:49:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/?p=50943"},"modified":"2026-03-20T07:49:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:49:58","slug":"a-place-for-everyone-in-tsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/student-life\/2026\/03\/20\/a-place-for-everyone-in-tsa\/","title":{"rendered":"A place for everyone in TSA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTSA? What do you do in an airport security club?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While this might be the initial thought that comes to one\u2019s mind when hearing the name, the acronym TSA at North Penn does not stand for Transportation Security Administration, but rather, TSA is the Technology Student Association. TSA is an organization that is offered in schools nationwide, and it aims to increase student excitement involving STEM. It wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if it does not sound familiar; in fact, TSA at North Penn was only recovered and reestablished this school year. But despite this, members of TSA were able to surpass their goal of simple participation in Regionals by having 17 groups qualify for States; a feat they most certainly were not expecting, given the recent rebirth of the club.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c[In TSA,] there are about 40 different events. Most of them are STEM related, but there\u2019s art and fashion, design with engineering, there\u2019s video and media presentation, and then you have more STEM focused [events] like computer science and biology,\u201d Monita Rijal, the outreach officer, explained. \u201cStudents pick events they\u2019re interested in and they have to do at least three [projects.] You compete at the regional level and if you qualify, you will compete at the state level for your given event.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_50945\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-50945\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-small wp-image-50945\" src=\"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5979-300x253.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"253\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5979-300x253.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5979-600x507.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5979-768x649.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5979.jpeg 1179w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-50945\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Biotech Group display at regionals competition<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seeing as there are so many complex levels to TSA, starting up the club again was no easy task. From obtaining clearance to restart, to spreading the word around the school, and then to actually hosting workshops, the formation of this club required a great deal of time and effort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOur president is Amanda Lee, she helped start the club at Pennbrook, and our advisor is Mr. Waddington, he\u2019s one of the engineering teachers,\u201d Rijal said. \u201cThe club existed before [at the high school], then it went obsolete during COVID, and then Amanda and Mr. Waddington started it back up this year, so this is kind of our first year running.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the beginning of the school year, Rijal chose three different events for her three projects. In the Regional competition which took place on January 24th, she qualified for States in both her biotechnology presentation and web design project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOne of my projects is biotech [focused], and that is a tri-fold presentation and a written report we put together,\u201d Rijal shared. \u201cMy other event is web design, in which my group built a website and there was a theme that had to be community focused. We built a website for our school with information about clubs that exist and an AI chat bot that can help you find what club would be best for you. And then our third [project] was engineering design. We built a sensor on a hand to control a 3D hologram that projects organs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Originality among projects is necessary in order for them to be unique when compared to their competitors, and the TSA organization is helpful in allowing students the creative liberty to design whatever they would like. However, this wide window of free rein requires greater dedication of time or more specific tools and parts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere are themes that give you guidelines, but you want to be as creative as you can because otherwise, all the projects are redundant and you are not going to qualify,\u201d Rijal stated. \u201cWe started in October, and we really picked up our work in November and December, and then we had regionals in January. It can get expensive sometimes, but North Penn is really helpful in providing electronic parts that are needed, but other than that, the other small components are less than $20.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<aside>\n    <div class='pullquote sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae sno-animate pullquote-shadow'>\n                <div class=\"quotebody\">\n                        <div class='largequote'>&ldquo;<\/div>\n                                    <p class='pullquotetext'>We started in October, and we really picked up our work in November and December, and then we had regionals in January. It can get expensive sometimes, but North Penn is really helpful in providing electronic parts that are needed, but other than that, the other small components are less than $20<\/p>\n                            <p class='quotespeaker'>&mdash; Monita Rijal <\/p>\n                        <div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<style>\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae {\n    display: flex;\n    float: right;\n    margin: 30px 0 30px 30px;\n    width: 50%;\n    border-color: #080833;\n    border-top-width: 5px;\n    border-right-width: 5px;\n    border-bottom-width: 5px;\n    border-left-width: 5px;\n    background-color: #a1dbfc;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae p.pullquotetext,\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae p.quotespeaker {\n    color: #000000 !important;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae .pullquotepic {\n    width: 33%;\n    margin-left: 25px;\n}\n.sno-story-body .sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae p.pullquotetext {\n    font-size: 22px;\n    line-height: 1.4em;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae .quotebar {\n    background: #000000;\n    flex: 0 0 90px;\n    margin-top: -15px;\n    margin-left: -15px;\n    padding-left: 15px;\n    padding-top: 15px;\n    margin-right: 15px;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae .largequote {\n\tcolor: #0b1244;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a45b8e079fae .quotebody {\n    width: unset;\n}\n<\/style>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the regional TSA competition, students of North Penn were given a taste of the competition atmosphere while also the chance to observe aspects to other schools\u2019 projects that they could eventually implicate and expand upon in their own work. Not knowing what to expect, the students walked in with a goal of just trying their best, and left with more qualifications than they believed possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf you get top 12 [at Regionals] you will move on to States and there are around 30 groups in every event. Out of the 22 [North Penn students] that went to Regionals, 17 qualified for States,\u201d Rijal stated. \u201cIt is still our first year back as a club, so just the fact that we were able to send all these teams to States is really amazing. We hope that each group has a project that places and goes to Nationals, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s all about coming together, learning about your events, preparing for competing next year, and having fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With mounting excitement, the students are arranging for their State competition which is being held at Seven Springs in Pittsburg from April 15th to the 18th. While Nationals would be an amazing addition to the agenda, the North Penn TSA officers are grateful for their experiences so far, and are beginning to look towards next year, where they are focusing on increasing the number of members in the club.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere\u2019s a place for everyone at TSA. Even if you\u2019re not interested in STEM, [there\u2019s] coding, engineering design, circuits, and fashion technology\u2026so there\u2019s really something for everyone,\u201d Rijal concluded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cTSA? What do you do in an airport security club?\u201d While this might be the initial thought that comes to one\u2019s mind when hearing the name, the acronym TSA at North Penn does not stand for Transportation Security Administration, but rather, TSA is the Technology Student Association. TSA is an organization that is offered in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"staff_name":[1565],"class_list":["post-50943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-life","category-top-stories","staff_name-emilia-adarayan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50943"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50948,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50943\/revisions\/50948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50943"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=50943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}