Impact of moving an international aviation design competition to a virtual environment: challenges, benefits, and lessons learned (Evaluation)

ABSTRACT

Starting in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on STEM competitions for high school students. With the shutdowns during the early part of the pandemic, competitions with an in-person component were forced to either cancel or adapt as virtual. The Real World Design Challenge (RWDC) competition was no exception. In April of each year, teams invited to participate in the National/International portion of the RWDC competition travel to the Washington, DC area to give presentations before a panel of judges. In a little over a month in 2020, RWDC was able to successfully transition the National/International competition to a virtual event. With the success from 2020, the 2021 competition again went virtual, and with the continued uncertainties related to the pandemic, the 2022 event was virtual. This paper discusses the impact that a virtual final event has had on the RWDC competition. The move to a virtual event in 2020 and the subsequent virtual events led to many challenges but also provided several benefits. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022