Seventeen teams from several local high schools compete in a STEM challenge during Fly Your Ride! at the San Diego Air & Space Museum

The first place winner in the distance category in the high school division was Hayden Loarie from Granite Hills High School.

Teams from Scripps Ranch High and the Preuss School at UCSD take second and third, respectively.

San Diego, CA – May 8, 2018 –Seventeen teams from several different local high schools teamed up in the Fly Your Ride! STEM challenge flying car competition at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park this past weekend.

Generously sponsored by SDG&E, the ISTAT Foundation, and the Kenneth T. & Eileen L. Norris Foundation, Fly Your Ride encourages students throughout Southern California to push the limits of their creativity and problem solving while engineering their own flying car.

The first place winner in the distance category in the high school division was Hayden Loarie from Granite Hills High School, with an impressive distance of seven feet. Michael Howo from Scripps Ranch High School came in second, and the team of Jason Nguyen and Jackie Le from the Preuss School at UCSD placed third.

Hayden Loarie of Granite Hills High School

The team of Neo Chen and Matthew Li of Torrey Pines High School garnered the Creativity in Design award. The team of Amari Henry and Solyana Michael of the Preuss School at UCSD won the Creativity in Engineering award, and Brandon Sosa, also of the Preuss School, earned an honorable mention in the Creativity in Engineering division.

A total of 320 teams entered Fly Your Ride this year, including 287 middle school (Grades 6-8) and 33 high school (Grades 9-12) teams from Southern California. In all, 426 students, including 355 in the middle school division and 71 in the high school division, submitted blueprints for Fly Your Ride.

Registration for the annual Fly Your Ride competition typically runs from October until the following January, followed by judging of the entries from January to March. The Fly Your Ride finals at the San Diego Air & Space Museum happen each April to May. Each year, more and more teams from middle schools and high schools from the San Diego region and beyond enter Fly Your Ride. School districts outside San Diego County have taken notice of the Fly Your Ride and have started creating similar competitions in their school districts.

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The San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park is California’s official air and space museum and education center. The Museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and it was the first aero-themed Museum to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Now showing: SPEED: Science in Motion, a fun interactive special exhibition for adventurers of all ages. The Museum is located at 2001 Pan American Plaza, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101. The Museum and gift store are open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with admissions until 4:30 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.