EL SEGUNDO, CA — Five El Segundo High School Students have earned first place in the 2024 Herndon Science Competition. Volodymyr Drobiazko, Quinn Gregory, Conrad Hoffman, Michal Sochur, and Daniel Tritasavit received this prestigious competition’s top prize for their creation of a VLEO (very low Earth orbit) satellite.
“We are extremely proud of the talented and hard-working students for their success at the Herndon Science Competition,” said Dr. Melissa Moore, Superintendent of the El Segundo Unified School District. “They were able to successfully take on the complexities of building a working satellite and articulate their process effectively, securing first place. A big congratulations goes out to Conrad, Daniel, Michal, Quinn, and Volodymyr. In addition, ESUSD is grateful for the steadfast support of Chevron for generously supporting the engineering pathway at El Segundo High. ”
The Robert H. Herndon Memorial Science Competition was established by The Aerospace Corporation in 1977 with the intention of sparking an interest in science, engineering, and technology—especially among minority students—and increasing diversity in the aerospace industry.
To enter the competition, students submitted a written project abstract detailing their experiment and a list of necessary materials. Based on these abstracts, teams were selected to attend in-person judging. During the in-person phase, students delivered a 6-8 minute oral presentation, covering their hypothesis, assumptions, experiment setup, analysis, and conclusions.
For its entry, the ESHS team designed LUMA, a working prototype of a VLEO satellite. The team’s prototype could be used to capture high-resolution imagery of the earth from a low-orbit in space.
The winning students will present their project and showcase their prototype at the upcoming Senior Expo Night on Monday, June 3, at 5:30 p.m. in the ESHS Library and Courtyard.
To learn more about the ESHS engineering pathway, please visit www.elsegundohigh.org/o/eshs/page/engineering-pathway.