The many hours the Real World Design (RWD) team has put into building its low-carbon-emission and environmentally friendly personal light sport aircraft paid off. The team of four seniors, one sophomore and four mentors won first place against Iolani and Kalani High Schools. The team will be traveling to Washington, D.C., on April 20-23 for the national competition.

This year’s competition challenged teams to design a light sport aircraft which had to accommodate two team members and fly 200 miles in less than two hours. Another requirement was a 2,000-word essay explaining where the plane would fly if given the chance.

The team began in mid-October and worked until the submission due date on Feb. 6.

Sophomore Angela Wong said, “Throughout the weeks, we watched hours of webinars and learned how to use engineering software including Creo Elements Pro, MathCad and Mechanica. We also had to learn aerodynamic terms and how to perform different analyses to minimize the challenge objective function.”

The team not only had to turn in its project on time but also do an oral presentation to a panel of engineers at the state capitol.

Senior Jennifer Nishida said, “It was an amazing experience presenting in front of the judges because they are prominent engineers who were genuinely interested in our aircraft design and presentation.”

The team will now be preparing for the Washington trip.