Update: See the end of this article to learn how the SBHS team did at the national competition!
SBHS students (L-R) Alex Piper, Jonathan Girard, Michael Gaffney, Varun tej Gonuguntla and Amsel Karic have won the Vermont state PTC Real World Design Challenge. To compete, the students needed to build a design team, dividing responsibilities and tasks as an actual engineering team would have to do. They needed to learn advanced 3-dimensional solid modeling design software, PTC Pro/Engineer, and engineering fluid dynamics software, ProEFD to design and test a fuel efficient wing for passenger aircraft. The students took non-dimensional airfoil data, created wing designs from the data, tested. proposed modifications, redesigned and retested, using the same processes as would be followed by a real engineering design team.
After a series of iterations of redesign and testing, students developed a final design proposal and submitted their design, engineering journal and a detailed final report. Their hard work paid off as their proposal was selected as the winner of the Vermont competition. The students will now move to the next phase of the competition, competing against the other 9 states participating in the Real World Design Challenge. The students will be flown to Washington DC in March to learn if they have won the national competition. The students will also be meeting with Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie in Montpelier and making a presentation to Vermont teachers on their experience at the educational technology conference Dynamic Landscapes, in May.
The SBHS team was flown to Washington DC the weekend of 3/20 - 3/22 for the national competition, where they competed against the top team from each of the other nine states that participated in the RWDC pilot. Over the previous six weeks, students had developed a design solution to a new challenge that involved designing a wing that was optimized for a speed of Mach 0.95--just under supersonic speed. At this speed, the behavior of a wing changes, as some of the air velocity exceeds supersonic as it passes over and under the wing, and this can have a negative impact on lift and drag. The trip to DC was completely underwritten by the competition sponsors, including all transportation, housing and meals. Students even received a $40 cash travel allowance to cover any additional costs, such as checked baggage fees. Students stayed at the 4H Conference Center in Chevy Chase, MD, where the semifinalist competitions took place. This is an excellent venue for this type of competition, as the staff there have tremendous experience working with student groups.
The actual competition took all of Saturday. Friday evening, after all the teams (except Oklahoma) had arrived, students were bussed to the National Mall for an evening tour of the monuments. They visited the FDR, Jefferson, WWII and Lincoln Memorials under the direction of a certified DC tour guide. It was an outstanding experience, as the lighting of these monuments is amazing and many of these monuments are even more impressive at night than during the day. The FDR memorial, especially, was much more dramatic with the shadows that were cast over some statues and reliefs by the targeted lighting.
Saturday morning, students were randomly assigned to groups of three or four teams. Within each group, the teams had 20 minutes to present their designs, describing the design and process they followed in developing it. After the presentations, each team responded to questions from the panel of judges for another 15 minutes. After all the presentations were completed, the judges took the results of the presentations, combined them with the results of the previously submitted technical design (which had been scored by other judges prior to the presentations) and selected one team from each of the three groups to proceed to the final competition that evening. The SBHS team gave a solid presentation and had a strong technical design, but not strong enough to beat out the team from Massachusetts, and so did not progress to the finals.
Saturday evening, all the teams were transported to the National Air and Space Museum, where the top teams from each of the three groups presented their designs to a completely new team of judges in the IMAX theatre, there. Although the SBHS students felt that they could have beaten the third, and possibly the second-place teams, they realized while watching the presentations that they had made a logical error in their calculations that made their aerodynamic drag results appear better than they actually were. Since this type of error was penalized in the technical scoring, it was very likely the primary reason why the students did not advance in the competition.
After the presentations were completed, the judges retired to determine the placings and everyone else was treated to an amazing, catered reception. The food was fabulous and students are able to mix with the other teams and make some new friends, while surrounded by historical aircraft and spacecraft. 
At last, the winners were announced. It was no surprise to learn that the winning team was the six Hawaiian girls from the Iolani School in Honolulu. This team had given an amazing presentation. It was well-paced, logical, and addressed all of the topics that were to be assessed. The students' delivery was flawless and their design was very solid. In fact, it was very similar to the SBHS design! At one point during the question period, in response to a question from a judge, the girls immediately pulled up a slide that addressed the question, even though that slide had not even been part of their delivered presentation! They had anticipated the question and had created a slide to address it, should it occur. The SBHS students agreed that they could not have beaten the team from Hawaii, even if they had progressed to the finals.
The students agreed that the RWDC was an exceptional learning experience. Sophomore Alex Piper and Freshman Jon Girard were already talking about next year's competition on the flight home, and they expect to be back in DC for the finals in 2010. The challenge now is to assemble a team of high-caliber students, reflecting a variety of strengths, who are willing to invest the amazing amount of time and talent necessary to meet next year's Real World Design Challenge.
More information and photos of the national competition are available at http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/rwdc/index.html.
For more information about RWDC at SBHS, contact