The five-member, ninth- and tenth-grade team of Woodstock High School students earned second place in the 2016 TEAMS (Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) Best in Nation competition at the National Technology Student Association conference that was recently held in Nashville.

The team also placed second in the problem-solving competition and placed as a finalist in both the written essay and prepared presentations. Teacher Karen Zayance is the teams coach.

The National competition was open to student teams that had placed in the top three at the state level, and approximately 1,000 students participated at Nationals. Students work together in the competitions to solve real-world problems written by industry leaders and college professors.

This years competition theme was Engineering the Tools of Innovation, and students competed in four areas: research and prepare an essay developing applications for optogenetics; complete multiple-choice questions on engineering, science and math topics; for the problem-solving competition, make an optical device to take light from one source to another, which was based on the Hubble Telescope systems failure; and for the prepared presentation portion, address interplanetary travel and the innovations needed in order for it to be achieved.