Xavier Seizes Design Challenge For Third Year

is the state winner of the 2011-2012 Real World Design Challenge and will represent Connecticut at the national challenge in Washington D.C. in April.

The RWDC is a public-private partnership that gives high school students the opportunity to work on engineering challenges that are confronting our nation's leading industries. This year’s challenge was to design a low-carbon-emission and environmentally-friendly personal light sport aircraft. The craft was required to accommodate two team members and fly 200 miles in less than two hours at a minimum cruise altitude of 1,000 feet.

This year's team was made up of five seniors and two juniors:

• Chris Muckle `12 of Madison
• John Voelker `12 of Southington
• Miraj Rahematpura `12 of Middletown
• Andrew Moeller `12 of Northford
• Giovanni Sabato `12 of Middletown
• Mario Chris `13 of Storrs
• Zach Ziobrowski `13 of Cheshire

Last year, the seven-member Xavier team beat more than 450 schools from 40 states to take top national honors with their design of an airplane wing that maximizes fuel efficiency and enhances performance. The ultimate goal of the challenge is to increase the number of students equipped to enter the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics workforce.  

“Gov. Malloy and I strongly believe that we must do better at preparing our young adults for the changing and challenging job market,” Lt. Governor Wyman said. “We need to encourage creative, critical thinking and individual initiative – and that is exactly what this competition is all about.”

Industry partner Pratt & Whitney provided critical mentoring to the participating teams and supplied judges for the state competition, held at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks. The judges were Tony Dennis, David Hobbs, Nick Monsarrat, Justin Urban and Steve Zysman.

“RWDC is a great way to motivate interest in the engineering and technology fields by presenting the next generation of skilled engineers and innovators with opportunities to apply the lessons of the classroom to the technical problems being faced in the workplace,” said Christine Gemelli, state coordinator for the RWDC.