The Future Problem Solvers (FPS) club at Stuyvesant participated in a competition on the weekend of March 27 at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. The regional finalists from New York, New Hampshire and Connecticut competed in this competition.

According to junior and FPS president Richard Lam, FPS is an organization that engages students in solving problems that will affect the future. Although the FPS organization was established over four decades ago, Lam, who took part in his middle school’s FPS team, created the Stuyvesant FPS team in September 2008. According to faculty advisor Manuel Simon, Stuyvesant is the first school at which he has coached an FPS team.

There are five main problems discussed at each competition. The 2008 to 2009 topics included the Olympic Games, cyber conflict, space junk, counterfeit economy and pandemic. Students who are involved in FPS research these problems throughout the year, and in the competitions, teams and individuals propose solutions through a various mediums.

“The state competition is a multifaceted competition,” Lam said.

Stuyvesant high school’s FPS team competed in the senior division of the art, team, scenario, individual and skit components of the competition. The team took home first place for the team problem solving component and second in the skit component.

In the team component, groups of four compete against teams from other schools, and each proposes a different solution to a question regarding one of the five main topics. Stuyvesant’s team consisted of Lam, junior Victor Ma, junior Matthew Miller and junior Alan Kim. The skit component involved the performance of a skit about one of the aforementioned topics by each four member team.

“It was a lot of hard work, but we kept winning,” Miller said.

“I was very impressed with the performance of my students,” Simon said. “I’m really proud of them.”

Other Stuyvesant members who did not attend the competition won awards. Sophomores Cindy Lam and Jacqueline Yeung won second and third place, respectively, in the Scenario Writing Competition. Junior Alan Kim, sophomore Ashley Qian, and Lam won third, second and first place, respectively, in the Art Competition.

The scenario component consists of students who submit short stories regarding one of the topics. In the art component, students submitted original art pieces inspired by one of the five problems.

Additionally, Richard Lam won first place in the individual competition, as well as the Medallion Award. The individual component is similar to the team component, expect the question is answered individually. The Medallion Award is given to the most valuable FPS member in the entire New York, New Hampshire, and Connecticut region.

Stuyvesant’s team also received an overall win at state for having “clarity, fluency, well research proposals and creativity,” Richard Lam said.

Next, the team will be participating in the international competition at Michigan State University from Wednesday, May 27 to Sunday, May 31.