{"id":215308,"date":"2015-11-26T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T20:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=215308"},"modified":"2015-11-26T06:00:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T20:00:17","slug":"award-winning-aeronautical-dolphins-impress-torres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/award-winning-aeronautical-dolphins-impress-torres\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning Aeronautical Dolphins impress Torres"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marianas High School Aeronautical Dolphins, champions of the national 2015 Real World Design Challenge, presented on Capital Hill Tuesday their award-winning design of an unmanned aircraft that they said would efficiently spray pesticide on crops while reducing the risks of chemical-related illnesses, wildlife loss, and harm to water quality. Acting governor Ralph DLG Torres said he came away from the presentation impressed.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Marianas High School Aeronautical Dolphins pose for a photo with acting governor Ralph DLG Torres and other school and administration officials yesterday. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI was speechless with their success,\u201d Torres said. \u201cEspecially, with our situation here with [Typhoon] Soudelor and the commitment\u201d they showed to the project. \u201cI am actually really excited for their future. They built their friendship, camaraderie with each other, which brings not just Marianas High School to a whole new level but also the whole CNMI. I can\u2019t wait to see what\u2019s up with them next,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune<\/p>\n

The MHS team worked year-round to complete the winning design that they said could help address food shortage scenarios come 2050, when the world\u2019s population is expected to be at about 9 billion people.<\/p>\n

Nine billion means 2 billion-plus more mouths to feed, or a minimum increase of about 70 percent of the population, team members said.<\/p>\n

Project manager Ann Margaret Norcio told Inos administration officials that the team spent late nights at local cafes as they had to find ways to work on the project without power or Internet following Typhoon Soudelor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t know how to describe it,\u201d said project mathematician Masrur Alam. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working since November 2014 and they announced the results November 2015. We\u2019ve put one year into this work, this product. And we worked everyday and most of the times during the weekends. To see what we designed win the national championship just left us\u2014I don\u2019t know how to describe it,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a lot of students who join clubs or competitions,\u201d Norcio told Saipan Tribune, \u201cthey usually do it to go on trips, to go to Washington, D.C. That\u2019s the same with RWDC. We\u2019ve had many people come try out, many people come and leave after finding out for this year students won\u2019t be going to compete in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be a letdown for most of the other competitors but for us, we didn\u2019t mind that we weren\u2019t going to D.C. What we focused on more was the challenge. Knowing that we worked this hard, and knowing that we didn\u2019t have to go to D.C. for it \u2026it feels very good,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Exhilarating<\/strong>
\nMHS mathematics teacher and coach John Raulerson also shared how the winning team found out the news, growing teary eyed and emotional as he spoke.<\/p>\n

He said they competed via teleconference on a Sunday, a day before winners were announced.<\/p>\n

It was during second period on a school day when he and his students gathered to listen to the announcement.<\/p>\n

As merit awards were being announced, the MHS team was passed over, despite one of the awards being an \u201cagainst all odds\u201d award, given the island\u2019s situation after Tyhpoon Soudelor.<\/p>\n

Raulerson said when they were announced as the overall winner, the \u201cwhole room went crazy\u201d and students went knocking on other teachers\u2019 rooms to share the news.<\/p>\n

He said only the state of Kansas has won the competition twice. The MHS teams join that list after winning the national competition in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are in the middle of the ocean and we won it twice. I think these kids deserve to see the president of the United States,\u201d Raulerson said, to much applause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Marianas High School Aeronautical Dolphins, champions of the national 2015 Real World Design Challenge,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":215315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[365,67,38,6333],"class_list":["post-215308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-mhs","tag-people","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}