Nine Neuqua Valley High School students won a national drone engineering title in July after their team captured the UAS4STEM Beginner Division championship at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The Indian Prairie School District 204 Board of Education recognized the aerial robotics team at its Monday, Sept. 14 meeting. The winning squad, designated Neuqua Valley Gold, beat four other teams at the finals, with the awards ceremony held July 23.

UAS4STEM is the Academy of Model Aeronautics' drone engineering competition for middle and high school students. Teams design, build, program and fly an uncrewed aircraft system to complete real-world mission scenarios. In the Beginner Division finals, teams flew a simulated construction site inspection, using autonomous flight and onboard technology to locate and identify a defect.

Neuqua Valley Gold topped a five-team field. Redstone Bravo from Huntsville, Alabama, finished second and 1430 Knights from Oakton, Virginia, took third. Neuqua Valley also entered a second team, Neuqua Valley Blue, in the same division. The first-place prize was $995, a trophy and individual certificates, according to the Academy of Model Aeronautics.

Teams were scored on documentation, engineering, presentations and testing, according to the District 204 board agenda.

The nine team members recognized were Zachary Brambilla, Nidhish Inumala, Sahana Karra, Shivani Kaushal, Adrian Leon, Vaibhav Lingutla, Deven Meher, Jonah Thomas and Vick Ye. Their coach is Anthony Tegtmeyer. He is a technology and engineering teacher at Neuqua Valley who was named Project Lead The Way National Engineering Teacher of the Year in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The Monday, Sept. 14 board meeting also included salutes for 52 District 204 high school seniors named semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program, including 26 from Neuqua Valley and 19 from Metea Valley High School. Three Neuqua Valley graduates earned Will County Farm Bureau Foundation scholarships, three staff members received $1,000 Illinois Education Association SCORE grants and retired Metea Valley math teacher Jacqueline Palmquist received the Distinguished Life Achievement in Mathematics Award from the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics.