Seven Frederick County Public Schools’ students in the Career and Technology Center’s Engineering Computer-Aided Design (CAD) program recently won state-level competition and qualify to advance to the national Real World Design Challenge (RWDC). They will compete against the winners from 41 states and territories in Washington, DC, April 19-22.

This is the second year the FCPS team has won at the state level and moves on to the national competition. Students Troy Grove and Garrett Radtke returned from last year’s champion team to join this year’s students: Jeet Kumar, Blair Plombon, Devin Shields, Jordan Smith and Tayler Evans.

Under instructor Phil Arnold’s guidance, the students combined their skills to win the challenge to design a small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) and a plan for outfitting the system with a remote camera to search for a lost and injured child at the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.

According to competition materials, sUASs have near-term potential for numerous civil and commercial applications with the increasing availability and decreasing cost of lightweight flight control systems, global positioning systems and sensor hardware. The national challenge is designed to provide continuity with the state challenge process and tools while including enough change and additional difficulty to require a comprehensive re-evaluation of the design process. Judges will look for ability to express comprehension, and linkage between the design solutions with what the students have learned. Teams demonstrating design viability, manufacturability, innovation and business plan development will receive specific recognition. The judges may also present one merit award per team based on the presentation and engineering design notebook. Merit awards will also go to teams showing collaboration, effective use of mentors, impact on STEM, and more.