Amanda Shekarchi/submitted Walter Johnson High School Team Lovercraft members Jacqueline Maranville, Seth Gottlieb, Daniel Pyle, Caldwell Clarke, Anis Amrane, Fletcher Tollefson, Modibo Camara and Gavin Kaplan are pictured with their prize winning hovercraft, Oliver. The students participated in a competition for Engineering 101 students at the University of Maryland College Park on Dec. 12. Oliver finished eighth out of 22 teams in maneuverability and won first place for design. Photographer Sherarchi was also a team member.

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Twenty-nine seniors at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda took a University of Maryland introduction to engineering course, ENES 100, this fall and finished their studies by taking part in the university’s hover craft competition Dec. 12.

All of the three teams from Walter Johnson qualified for the competition, which included teams from each section of the course offered to Maryland freshmen.

A total of 68 teams worked on this project, 22 qualified for the competition including all three teams from Walter Johnson, Patricia Richards, Walter Johnson Science Department Chair, said.

The students had to design and build a hover craft that could detect and maneuver to a payload, pick it up and exit a course, Richards explained.

Walter Johnson’s Team Lovercraft won eighth place overall, and the school’s team Domesticated Hover Cats came in 11th.

Team Lovercraft also won the craftsmanship award for design and building their craft.

“What I love about this is it gives kids an application for what they are learning. They are learning physics, fluid dynamics and computer science in a team effort in this course. That’s really what engineering is all about,” Richards said.

Walter Johnson is the first high school that has been offered the engineering course by the University of Maryland. Students pay university tuition and can earn three college credits.