On April 15, students Grace Zongo, Shin Thant Moung Moung, Armand Carlo Agbulos, and Levi Lee from the Madison College STEM program participated and won second place in the PEP (promoting electronic propulsion) competition for building a small craft. The event was supported by The American Society of Naval Engineers, taking place in Virginia Beach, West Virginia.

In a nail-biting win, the students who participated experienced difficulty before starting the competition. In order to bring the boat to the competition, the students had to mail it to Virginia Beach.

When they arrived, their boat was missing for 24 hours prior to them competing. Eventually, just two hours before the STEM team had to evaluate the boat, it had arrived. The test was used to determine the eligibility of the school’s small craft

When they received the boat from the mail, it was partially broken. So, the team raced for two hours to fix it.

The team got a second-place win, and in a highlight of victory, they won against the Princeton College, where their school’s craft had gone up in flames.

The American Society of Naval Engineers, who supported this event, gives small scholarships to teams of students to build a boat that is powered by batteries or electronics.

The Madison College STEM group received a $7,000 scholarship to build the boat from scratch.

The STEM group designed and built the boat by printing 3D models and molding the frames, and they even built the battery itself.

Madison College has never competed in this competition before 2024. They competed with 4-year college teams like Princeton and Yale, who has participated in the competition for years.

The Madison College STEM will be participating again next year in PEP.