The Technology Student Association (TSA) is a national organization in which students can partake in competitions, attend state and national conferences, and participate in projects with the purpose of "Learning to live in a technical world".

“The Miami Lakes Educational Chapter competes at the annual TSA Conference against chapters from all over Florida. Each event is different from one another in their own way, for example one can be on-sight and another has to be done throughout the school year,” said Bryan Gutierrez, a senior in Engineering and the President of MLEC’s  TSA chapter.

The final, major events of TSA consist of nearly 36 high school competitions which cover various areas of technical education. The range of competitions include video events like on demand and digital video production, animatronics, programming, and web design. Contests in biotechnology, parliamentary procedure and even fashion design are commonplace. 

A new addition to the competitions is the VEX tournament which is a robotics competition that helps develop their skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics areas. Additionally, the VEX tournament and helps emphasize the other events offered by TSA.

Each competition has its own set of rules and the theme of the conference varies yearly.
 
“I have been pushing for the last few years that every academy take their special skills and put them to the test at TSA conferences,” said Gutierrez. 

These 27 students participated this year in 29, or so, of the events against over a thousand other students from all over Florida. These events included prepared presentation, Sciviz, and even fashion. And despite being ‘new-comers’ to the TSA scene, they placed 4th overall in Florida,- the toughest TSA state delegation- a dramatic increase from 12th [place] 4 years ago, in the most recent competition last week. 

 “My experience at the TSA 2012 State Conference cannot be put into words,” said Diego Horna, reporter of the MLEC edition of TSA. “Overall, the experience I got at TSA is a one in a life time deal. I'm already psyched for next year's conference!”

"[The competition was] wonderful. I am so proud of all my friends, underclassmen and club-mates that went and [tried] their hardest. We had a ton of spirit and I think I can easily say we all enjoyed our time at Amelia Island.” Gutierrez said.