Story updated March 31 12:38 p.m.

At the statewide high school engineering completion on March 30 at Purdue University, one of the four Cathedral student teams that entered the event took top honors, according to STEM teacher and team co-moderator Mrs. Michelle Vander Missen.

The competition, called Engineering Expo Day, attracted about four dozen teams and more than 200 students from across Indiana.

Members of the first-place team include seniors Kristen Caldwell and Rubin Jiang and juniors Ryan Dubbink, Lucia Grill and Lauren Walker. Because of their team’s performance at Purdue, any of these students who attend Purdue will receive a scholarship to the university.

Dubbink said each of the more than 40 teams that entered participated in three events: an engineering challenge, a trivia quiz about Purdue and roller coasters and an impromptu design competition. In the design segment, students had to build a scaled roller coaster from materials they were given.

“Throughout the day, we faced many challenges and in the end we were surprised that we won,” Dubbink said.

Purdue students, all of whom were affiliated with the Purdue Student Engineering Foundation, sponsored the event and judged the contest.

Vander Missen said, “I am so excited for these students and their achievement. I was impressed with their roller coaster design presentation, which actually won a special recognition. How wonderful that they were able to earn scholarship awards toward a Purdue education, especially since many of them are considering Purdue. I am proud of all our teams who competed. Their designs were outstanding and they represented Cathedral’s STEM and science programs well.”

Physics teacher Mr. Adam Hibshman also serves as the team’s co-moderator.