Upper School Students Thriving in Debate, Model UN and Robotics Competitions

St. Margaret’s Upper School students have been traveling to competitions across Southern California in a variety of Upper School clubs and competitive teams.

 

From Model United Nations to debate to robotics, here’s a look at how these talented groups of students are doing:

 

 

The Model United Nations program is back in the Upper School after a one-year hiatus last year. Led by Class of 2026 students Rohen Vargo and Zoe Chen, the club began the year with the goal of building student interest by holding weekly meetings and attending two local conferences. 

 

Recently, nine Upper School students represented St. Margaret’s as delegates for the United Arab Emirates at the Tustin High School Model United Nations conference.  This was the 32nd year of the Tustin MUN conference, one of the largest student-run high school Model United Nations conferences in Southern California. With over 30 schools and nearly 1,000 students participating, the St. Margaret’s students jumped into a vibrant and competitive environment. Zoe received an Outstanding Delegate Award, while Rohen Vargo received a research award and four students – Rohen, Martin Kovachev, Stewart Ma and Kirby Zhang—received commendation awards.

 

The Upper School debate club consists of 20 students who meet each Wednesday during lunch to prepare for upcoming tournaments. The team had its first tournament last month at Clarement McKenna, placing second overall. One team, consisting of Clare Martin, Rohen Vargo and Yvette Zhang, earned the 6^th place team award trophy out of all participating schools. The debate team will have three more competitions in the spring.

 

The club is led by Upper School students Branda Hu, Daniel Lyons, Alexa Edwards and Claire Martin, and sponsored by Upper School history teacher Chase Robinson.

 

The robotics team at St. Margaret’s consists of 15 Upper School students, led by team captains Ian Ekvall and Vaughn Bosu. The team will compete in several competitions throughout the school year, with the first being in Orange earlier this month.

 

This year’s competition involves programming a robot to pick up gamepieces from the center of the playing field, then delivering them to various location elsewhere in the field for points.