Irvine High School's three StellarXplorers teams (15 students total) have been competing against 300 teams across the nation since October. They have been in Denver from 4/17-4/21 competing in the Air and Space Force National Finals. Of the ten qualifying teams present for this trip, three were from Irvine High School and it was the first time we took any team to the finals! All expenses were paid by the Air and Space Force Association for 19 of us who attended.
This was an extremely rigorous competition that involved finding optimum orbits, satellite components, launch sites, and launch vehicles to meet the mission of gathering data from the dust trail of an asteroid and creating a presentation in an 8-hour window.
Students also had to present their findings in front of a panel of judges that included a retired Air Force General, a retired Air and Space Force Major General, and other industry and military judges. They also had to take a quiz. Scores for all three rounds were tallied for the final score.
The winning team consists of: Megha Ayyaswamy (captain), Ajay Shah, Raksheta Kulkarni, and Alan Nguyen. Each student receives $3000 towards their further education.
The other two teams are comprised of:
Iuliana Cherevko (captain), Rohan Frijo Manjaly, Kashvi Khabrani, Nicolas Bernardo, Prathamesh Patankar, and Rishon Robert.
Archit Raul (captain), Nathan Phan, Niyanth Raja, Zaid Sheikh, and Nathan Whitley.
They have placed in the top 10 of over 300 teams across the nations! Each student networked with industry and military professionals and were the talk of the town as the school with three teams!
Interested in joining the team next year? Contact archanajain@iusd.org
