Rancho High School team wins international engineering challenge

A team of students from Rancho High School’s Academy of Aviation recently won an international high school engineering challenge.

The RamJets team took first place in both the national and international categories in the Real World Design Challenge last month, the Clark County School District announced Monday.

The team’s seven members each will receive a $50,000 scholarship from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

It’s the second time Rancho’s team has won the national competition, the school district said. The first was in 2013.

This year, Rancho’s team beat out schools from China and the Philippines in the international category.

Team member Jordan Tran, 15, said in a video provided by the school district that he was shocked at first when the team won.

“I couldn’t really believe it,” he said.

What set the team apart this year was working collaboratively, Jordan said.

Jana Follins, one of the coaches of the RamJets, said in the video that the team started on the project in August and was self-led, calling in mentors and coaches when needed.

“The team has been focused the entire year,” she said.

The team did engineering design for a full-sized aircraft that’s uncrewed and used for package delivery, Follins said.

Real World Design Challenge, run through a public-private partnership, started in 2008.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.