Harambee students place second at 2013 National MESA Engineering Design Competition

Five middle school students from West Philadelphia’s Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School won second place at this year’s National MESA Engineering Design Competition for a prosthetic limb device they built.

The seventh graders competed against 72 qualifying middle and high school teams from across the country.

In May, the team won the qualifying 2013 MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement) Bio-engineering competition, held at Temple University, after they were able to make design changes on the spot to the prosthetic limb device they built. This past June, the students traveled to Oregon to compete in the national competition.

Founded in 1973, Harambee, “an African-centered charter school,” is known for its STEM programs. One extracurricular program, the STEMnasium Learning Academy, has been in existence for a decade. Harambee is also one of the sites of Bootstrap Philadelphia, a program that teaches students algebra through coding. Seven-year-old mobile app developer Zora Ball was one of those Harambee students.