MHS Real World Design Challenge Team (L to R): Olyvia Mathews, Sumeet Panchal, James Talbert, Jonathon Kirner, Ashley Harris. Not pictured: Colin Crumrine.
Marshalltown High School placed third in the state Real World Design Challenge, competing in the Iowa’s Governor Cup competition April 13 at the Science Center of Iowa.
Real World Design Challenge is an annual aerospace engineering competition providing high school students the opportunity to work on real world engineering challenges in a team environment. Students utilize professional engineering software to develop solutions to challenges confronting national industries.
Since October the MHS team, “Marshalltown Moth Busters”, have been researching and designing a reasonable solution to this year’s challenge: developing an Unmanned Aircraft System to efficiently monitor corn borer damage in a typical North Central Iowa field. The team submitted a 40-page engineering notebook on March 31 and was judged on a 20-minute oral presentation on April 13. The team’s name is based on their solution, which identified the corn borer in the moth stage of its life cycle.
This is Marshalltown’s third year participating in the Real World Design Challenge. The team placed third in the state behind Davenport (winner) and Clinton (runner-up).
Team members are senior Jonathon Kirner, juniors James Talbert, Sumeet Panchal, Ashley Harris, and Colin Crumrine, and sophomore Olyvia Mathews. The team was coached by Susan Fritzell and sponsored by the MHS Extended Learning Program.
