By Mike Kruzman / news@whmi.com


Two teams of students from Howell Public Schools have brought home awards for vehicle designs.

Students from Howell’s Innovation Academy recently took part in two Square One Education Network Design Competitions. Square One is a non-profit foundation that prepares students with essential skillsets for higher-learning institutions and the ever-evolving needs of STEM-related jobs.

At the event, Brady Caylor, Autumn Ellwart, Max Fellows and Jack Hartigan claimed first place overall in the Full-Scale Innovative Design Challenge. According to a release, the team took that honor by designing and building a full-scale electric vehicle complete with parking sensors. They then pitted that vehicle against several other teams in various performance challenges on Figure 8 and road courses. On top of coming in first, that team also earned the Public Relations Award at the competition.

Another Innovation Academy team comprised of Trenton Barbour, Brendon Barbour and Ben Crandall came in third place for both the Underwater Innovative Vehicle Design Challenge and the Ambassadorship Award.

In both challenges, students demonstrated critical thinking and analytical skills to engineer their vehicles, while building them out through various design revisions and testing.