The Conestoga Valley Middle School was this year's host for the Pennsylvania Technology Student Association Regional Conference that was attended by at least 300 students from Lancaster and Lebanon counties.

The participants of this year's regional conference competed in several events that showcased their Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) skills. Teachers consider events and conferences like this as a stepping stone towards a brighter future. They consider the challenges in STEM as one of the helping factors that would help them to succeed in life after school.

"As a middle school adviser I get to see these students as 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, and all the way up to their senior year," Conference Director Christopher Miller said. "It just really makes me proud to see what these kids are producing and how they develop over that time frame, their problem-solving skills, their engineering skills and they need that to be successful in today's workforce," Miller added.

Meanwhile, the host school also had students who excelled in a variety of events at the annual conference.

The students were given the chance to prove their STEM skills and competed against teams from 19 schools. There were at least 60 events during the conference. These were animatronics, architecture, biotechnology, construction, engineering, video/photo and transportation modelling, among others.

Winners from Saturday's competition qualify to compete in the TSA's State Conference held on April 13 to 16 of this year.

Winners qualify for the TSA state conference in April. For those who are in need of further information about the upcoming April state conference, you may find important information as well as other pertinent documents at PATSA website. Included in the site are the fees of lodging houses as well as forms for the student participants who will be joining the upcoming event. A PA TSA Handbook is also available for reading.