Previous Story
MHS team’s winning plane design being considered for manufacture
The Marianas High School Aeronautical Dolphins’ aircraft design for the 2013 Real World Design Challenge competition, which won the overall championship, may potentially see the skies, according to MHS principal Sherlyn Cabrera.
Anthony Copolla, RWDC’s North America Education program manager told the school in an email: “We’re considering a pilot in manufacturing some student designs and want to potentially use your team’s winning design from last year for our initial test and prototype.”
John Raulerson, coach of the Aeronautical Dolphins, said he feels the team has a good chance of being chosen by the RWDC program for this pilot run.
“We won it last year so I’m assuming that they’re going to take ours,” he said.
Caberera called last year’s victory as another “opportunity to be awesome” for MHS students. “They beat all the other states. That is huge,” she said, adding that these students now are “a part of history.”
She said the students have gotten scholarship offers to go to Embry-Riddle, an aeronautical university—which according to the RWDC website, is worth $50,000.
Cabrera commended the team’s efforts as they meet as early as 3am in the morning to take part in webinars with Washington, D.C.
“I really want to give a shout out to our students,” she said on their achievements.
MHS has won the RWDC Pacific Region title for the last three years. In November this year at Washington, D.C., they will defend their title with this year’s aircraft-in-progress, “The HawkEye 670.”
Raulerson said he thinks the “Hawkeye” is even better than the 2013 champion prototype being considered for manufacture.
“It has more capability,” he said.
The aircraft has jet-engine technology and multi-flight controls, among other features, according to Raulerson.
“It can hover, it can rotate on a vertical axis, it can balance itself on a lateral axis,” Raulerson said, listing some of its dynamics.
He said the team just has to take care of the electrical component as they are choosing what type of battery to use.
“I think it’s going be a really good aircraft,” he said.
