Lt. Governor Brian Dubie Presents Award at State House

(MONTPELIER) – Five South Burlington High School students were recognized by Lt. Governor Brian Dubie today for winning the first-ever Vermont Real World Design Challenge (RWDC). The team will travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the national finals on March 20 and 21.

The Real World Design Challenge is a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, software company Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), Hewlett-Packard Corp. and Flomerics Inc. They chose Vermont to launch the competition nationally in July 2008. Ten states in all are participating in this year’s Challenge, with more anticipated to come aboard in the second year.

The RWDC is designed to inspire and engage students in a new way and with real-world applications in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, which will encourage them to seek further education and careers in these fields.

The students’ task was to design a wing that would make an airplane more fuel efficient on both take-off and landing. The PTC software is the same computer-assisted design (CAD) software used by professional engineers. It is provided at no charge to all students and teachers at all schools who participate in the challenge. Students are mentored by professional engineers from the U.S. Dept of Energy, the FAA, Cessna and other participating companies in Vermont and nationally.

The South Burlington Team will go on to Washington, D.C. on March 20th to compete in the National Challenge against winners from the other nine states.

The team, led by Coach Steve Barner at South Burlington High School, has started work on its national entry, which they will present before a panel of aviation experts who will judge the overall entries.

The members of the team and their grade levels at South Burlington HS are:

Michael Gaffney, Senior;
Thomas Piper, Sophomore;
Amsal Karic, Senior;
Jonathon Girard, Freshman;
Varun tej Gonuguntla, Senior

For more information on the Real World Design Challenge, please go to: http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/RWDC/index.html

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