Two teams of Dripping Spring High students competed and were successful in recent technology and engineering competitions.
On Jan. 13, Dripping Springs “Team IAT” competed at the Texas Super Regional of F1 in Schools at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA). In the F1 in Schools Challenge, students use software to collaborate, design, analyze, manufacture, test, and race miniature compressed air-powered balsa wood F1 cars. The Dripping Springs High students won two awards for “Fastest Car” and “Research and Development.” They also finished second overall, earning the right to advance to the National Finals in late spring.
Team members are Aubrey Caldwell, Ken Gossett, Cade Nowicki, Elliott Turner and Varum Verma.
This is the second year that Dripping Springs High School has been represented in the F1 in Schools competition; last year’s team qualified for the world championships and won two special awards there.
The Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot program sponsors the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, which Dripping Springs High sent a team to for the first time last month. The competition puts teams of high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired IT professionals tasked with managing the network of a small company. In the rounds of competition, teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the images and harden the system while maintaining critical services.
Team Cyber Tigers competed in two rounds and placed in the top 30 percent of more than 2,000 schools from around the nation that participated. Based on that performance, the DSHS team is now placed in the Platinum Category for the State Finals on Jan. 21, with a potential national bid on the line.
Team Cyber Tigers consist of Noah Del Angelo, Igor Derke, Jacob Houssien, Andrew Muegel, and Jacob Peslak.
