Silver Summit Academy students win international innovation award

Team Yeti from left to right: Gibson Hochhauser, Tess Cronin, Neve Stein Photo: Silver Summit Academy

KAMAS, Utah — Silver Summit Academy’s Engineering Capstone class has earned international recognition at the Real World Design Challenge (RWDC). The annual competition, designed for high school students in grades 9-12, focuses on real-world engineering problems, challenging participants to develop practical solutions using professional engineering software.

This year, the challenge tasked students with creating an uncrewed aircraft to aid in wildfire mitigation. Silver Summit Academy’s Team Yeti, consisting of Tess Cronin, Gibson Hochhauser, and Neve Steinthree, excelled in this task. Competing against 21 state-winning teams and international teams from India, Pakistan, and China, their innovative design, Inferno, secured them the 2024 International Innovation Merit Award.

“The Inferno is unique because they utilized a generator system for propulsion rather than a battery and used SATCOM to solve a whole host of communication challenges providing reliability and durability to meet mission needs,” explained Debbie Rydalch, the students’ advisor. SATCOM, or Satellite Communications Datalink, enables reliable communication between the aircraft and ground users like Air Traffic Control.

“We are so proud of these students, their dedication to excellence, and look forward to what their future will bring,” Rydalch added.