LOS ALAMOS — A look at the project titles from the 19th New Mexico Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge might leave you wondering if the competition really involved teens from all over New Mexico, or Ph.D. physicists from our two national labs.

But after the announcer tossed a few miniature footballs in the air, the truth became apparent. The crowd of about 250 kids jumped, scrambled and waved their arms for the free handouts, each complete with a New Mexico State University logo.

Yup. Teens.

Definitely teens.

Santa Fe's adolescent contingent did fairly well in the Challenge, a year-long competition between groups from middle and high schools to see who can build the best project involving a supercomputer.

The Challenge is primarily funded by Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories and through a $55,000 annual grant from the state Legislature.

Santa Fe's participants didn't win the top three prizes, but teams from Monte del Sol Charter School, Desert Academy and a mixed team from Capshaw Middle School and Monte del Sol each took home awards, cash and some other cool goodies — including some educational experience they all say will help them in college.

"We learned a lot about codes and how to make computer-based models," said Cole Tuffli, who, with teammate Tenzin Lungtok, took the Sandia National Laboratories Creativity and Innovation Award home for Monte del Sol.

The two seniors were mentored by Stephen Guerin and John Paul Gonzales from the Santa Fe Complex for their project, called "Machine Vision and Alternative Game Control."

"It was our first year doing it," Tuffli said. "Our mentors convinced us to participate, and it turned out to be a good experience and a fun project."

The pair designed a virtual air-hockey game using a projector, infrared light and a Wii computer game system controller — equipment they were allowed to experiment with at the Santa Fe Complex, they said.

"We decided it would be fun to make a game that people can't usually play on the computer," Tuffli said.

Both teens, who won $50 each as part of their prize, are headed to The University of New Mexico this fall.

Tuffli is thinking about a business degree, and possibly becoming a teacher after college.

Lungtok is interested in graphic design, computer science or software design, although he hasn't made up his mind yet, he said.

"I think the Challenge helped me prepare for college," Lungtok said. "The papers, the programming helped a lot. I didn't really know how software worked before this."

Rose Morris-Wright, a senior at Desert Academy, also said she learned a lot from participating in her first year of the Challenge.

Her team was picked among nine finalists, and it also won the Encryption Award for its project, called "The Implementation and Optimization of the RSA Encryption Method."

"It was a good way to experience science in the real world," Morris-Wright said. "In school, we're always doing what our teacher calls 'cookbook labs,' where everything's laid out for you step by step. In this, we got to pick our own project. You can do anything you want."

Her team looked at ways to speed up the time it takes for things like credit cards to run through Web sites, she said. "Our project was basically to make that faster without losing security."

Other members of the team, who each got $25 in prize money along with a trophy for their school, included Colton McDonald, Avery Rowlison and Bjorn Swenson. They were mentored by Thomas Christie, a teacher at Desert Academy.

Morris-Wright also won a $1,500 scholarship from the Challenge, which she will use when she heads to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in the fall, she said.

She hasn't decided what to major in, but she thinks she might follow her lifelong love of mathematics.

Even though Morris-Wright's team didn't win one of the top three prizes, she said she's proud of how well it did. It was her teacher's first year bringing a team to the Challenge, she said.

"I'm happy with the results," Morris-Wright said. "I think that's pretty good for the first year. We're glad we made finalists."

Another Santa Fe team took home a trophy for the Best Web Presentation. That team was made up of Max Bond from Monte del Sol and Harsha Dodda from Capshaw Middle School for their project, "Universally Acceptable Distributed Computing on Public Heterogeneous Networks, Applied to the Search for Mersenne Primes."

Their mentor was Nick Bennett, an independent computer-systems architect, designer and developer and longtime Challenge volunteer.

It might not be a huge showing for Santa Fe schools, but more students participate each year, and that's something Dave Kratzer, who helps organize the Challenge with Los Alamos National Laboratory, hopes will continue to grow.

"We've had a slight improvement in our Northern New Mexican participation this year, and we really want to encourage more to participate next year," Kratzer said.

This year, more than 320 students from 25 schools participated.

At the end of this summer, Challenge organizers plan to hold some roundups around the state to gather the next crop of competitors. Kratzer said he expects one will be somewhere around Taos and another will be in Santa Fe.

Erika DeBenedictis, a junior at Albuquerque Academy who was on this year's winning team — her third Challenge win in a row — also encouraged more Northern New Mexico teens to join in the fun next year.

DeBenedictis' team, sponsored by Albuquerque's La Cueva High School, won for its project "A Novel Approach to Asteroid Identification Using Image Processing of Existing Data."

DeBenedictis plans to come back next year for her final Challenge, she added.

"This is a great experience," DeBenedictis said. "Sometimes it can seem a little intimidating, but computers, the teamwork — it's really a blast. I hope more people will try it out next year."

For more information about the Challenge or to read the winning reports, visit www.Challenge.nm.org.

Contact Sue Vorenberg at svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.