Five Wycombe High students have won a prestigious RAF national engineering award for designing a military drone – the second year in a row that our students have won the contest.
And their prize or winning the contest is a week-long residential engineering course at RAF Cosford this summer.
The annual STAAR (Summer Time Advanced Aerospace Residency) Contest is organised by the RAF in conjunction with the Northrop Grumman Foundation – a philanthropic organisation whose work includes the encouragement of STEM education in schools.
Headteacher, Nicola Renyard, revealed the news of the competition victory, by surprising the five Year 9 students at lunchtime today (Monday) in one of the Wycombe High Physics laboratories. The winning students are Safa, Juno, Chloe, Lara and Gloria who said they were “happy” and “excited” with the news of their amazing achievement.
Juno said: “We met every week and planned what we were going to do that week and each one of us took different tasks”.
Mrs Renyard said: “Congratulations to all five students and to our Physics teacher Jeremy Crocker for overseeing the winning entry.
“It’s fantastic news on our first day back from the Easter holidays and for students at Wycombe High to have won the competition two years running is incredible. We are especially proud and delighted because Wycombe High champions the inspiration, encouragement and empowerment of young women, to foster the next generation of engineers, designers and makers”.
Mr Crocker said: “To win this illustrious award, the Wycombe High students had to perform various engineering tasks across the STEM spectrum, culminating in the design of a military drone. We are so proud that our students have now won the contest two years running. Let’s hope we can do it all again next year!”
