Filip Bușcu, David Ghiberdic and Rareș Marinescu, students at the Bucharest International Informatics High School (ICHB), won a prize in the Engineering Technology: Statics and Dynamics category. They invented and built an airplane wing capable of increasing aircraft maneuverability, reducing fuel consumption by up to 5% and inducing stealth properties. Their project, entitled Hawk Wing, was examined for three days by nine committees made up of representatives of major American universities, major technology companies and even the US Army. The final phase of the competition took place in Los Angeles, USA.
Regeneron ISEF is unanimously considered by the American and British university environment to be the most prestigious STEM competition in the world, long before the international science Olympiads, and it is the first time that Romania has climbed the podium. Every year, thousands of entrants from dozens of countries try to win a prize that usually brings with it access to universities in the US and UK. In 2024, over 1,800 students from 76 countries competed.
“We only had one month to build the prototype, fly it and collect part of the data that confirmed our theory,” said Filip Bușcu. “We built it three times, because twice we crashed it, but it seems that it was our fierceness to fight until the last moment that the examiners liked,” he added.
The Romanian students were financially supported by sponsors, the most important of them being Hidroelectrica.
“It’s amazing what these kids can do, how they can force technology to jump steps and get immediately applicable results. For us it was an opportunity and an honor to financially support a team that took Romanian performance to the big league of science”, said Karoly Borbely, CEO of Hidroelectrica. KPMG, Banca Transilvania and Fundația Culturală Magdalena and Ovidiu Buluc also contributed to supporting the project.
Filip Bușcu is the initiator and leader of the Romanian Orbital Mission space program, which brought the ROM-2 and ROM-3 satellites, Romania’s first functional satellites, into Earth orbit.
David Ghiberdic was part of the ROM-3 project team, and Rareș Marinescu is a multiple medalist at the international physics olympiads. Currently, the children are involved in several aerospace projects, including a large satellite with advanced research missions built in collaboration with two major American universities.
Airplane construction and flight movie here.
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