(Photo courtesy Amita Sastry)

By Ian Hugo – Sports Editor

The Jonathan Law STEM team recently placed first at Module One of the Sikorsky STEM competition.

The competition took place at Cheshire Airport and pitted Law students against STEM teams from nine other schools in the area. The schools were tested on their knowledge of Corsair and search and rescue helicopters and took part in interactive team building exercises.

“I enjoy STEM because it allows me to cooperate with my peers, work together and compete against other schools,” senior James Mercaldo said.

The task at hand was for students to create a business presentation explaining the history and functionality of Corsair (a World War II fighter bomber) and search and rescue helicopters, which teams researched leading up to a presentation in front of Sikorsky staff.

The presentation consisted of five speakers, each of which were responsible for explaining a certain aspect of the team’s presentation. Amita Sastry introduced the presentation, Jake Fucci explained the history of Corsairs, Dan Ouellette detailed the five main Corsairs used throughout World War II, Mattheus Mejia spoke about the history of search and rescue helicopters, and James Mercaldo discussed why helicopters became the go-to vehicle in the search and rescue industry.

“Presenting was difficult but it ended up turning out well so all our efforts paid off,” Ouellette said.

After Law’s presentation, the team participated in a team building exercise, competing against other schools taking part in the STEM presentation. Once the team-building exercise had ended, the top three places were announced and Law was revealed as the winning team.

“I knew we had a good chance because we have a lot of good members on the team this year that work really hard,” Sastry said. “But I was still really surprised and excited when they announced that we got first place.”

Law has been working hard towards this result, improving the place in which they finished each year since the induction of STEM two years ago. Law did not place their first year – they finished third overall – and so far this year Law is in first place.

Law’s STEM team expects to compete in four more modules this year: free body diagram, trade study, the planning module, and the final project which comes in April. The team is currently working on the planning module, which is due on October 26, and working towards the long term goal of the final presentation at Sikorsky and winning the overall Sikorsky STEM competition.

Each module is worth a fixed amount of points, with the final project being worth double, making Law’s preparation that much more important. For the rest of the year and for the remainder of the modules, Law is confident in their abilities and that they’ll place high come the final project.

“I think we’re off to a good start, and that our first place position in this will kind of catapult us to first place in the final event,” senior Emmanuel Alesna said.