RIO RANCHO, N.M. – For the fifth year in a row, Cleveland High School took the 2024 Governor’s STEM Challenge by storm.

“This is a very rewarding project. It is amazing watching them come in, some of them not knowing what to expect or understanding how to do research, and then come out on the other end,” said Ashli Knoell, one of the sponsors.

“In fact, the club started because some of the students reached out to the organizers of the governor’s STEM Challenge and basically volunteered Ashli Knoell into being their sponsor. Then she came to me and said, ‘Hey you are doing this with me because the students have decided we are doing this club,’” said Lauren Huey, a co-sponsor.

Cleveland was one of the teams that came out on top as a showcase winner. The team designed an automatic food harvester for people who live in food deserts.

“We practiced the presentation and I felt really good about how we presented to our judges. It was exciting to be able to communicate what we had put so much work in after the past 2 months,” said one of the team members, Graciela Rodriguez.

The club is mostly self-funded. Students raise money for competitions and in some cases, like the governor’s challenge, they are given a $500 budget to create their project.

“The whole way we had five judges and every single one the first four we didn’t win, and I was like, ‘dang this is coming close,’ and then that last one when they said our name I was praying it was amazing,” said Niranjan Shivashankar, who is also part of the STEM team at Cleveland.

Now they are turning their focus to a new competition that could take them out of state if they place.

“In this Storming STEM Club, we compete in all different types of science competitions. In addition, there is the Science Olympiad, so we are just preparing for other competitions right now,” Rodriguez said.

Science Olympiad is being held at New Mexico Tech. If they win, they will move on to nationals at Michigan State University.