YCIS Shanghai shattered records at the Hovercraft Design Competition put forth by Shanghai Livingston American School and held at Concordia International School.

YCIS Shanghai shattered records at the Hovercraft Design Competition put forth by Shanghai Livingston American School and held at Concordia International School. Led by Design & Technology teachers Kevin McHale and James Thombs, the team designed a hovercraft that was affectionately named “Christopher” after the inventor. Their design ultimately won first place for speed, distance, and innovation, and third place for simplicity of design.

The Shanghai Livingston American School sent out a challenge to other international schools to build a hovercraft in December 2010. YCIS Shanghai was represented by Years 10 to 13 students chosen for their outstanding workmanship, dedication and, most importantly, teamwork spirit. Mr. McHale and Mr. Thombs were impressed with the students’ ability to work as a team and produce not only a high quality hovercraft, but one that performed well in competitive circumstances and hovered 60 mm above ground.

“We are very pleased with the students’ teamwork and performance under pressure. They juggled a host of other academic and extracurricular commitments but still managed to meet the set deadline and even made creative improvements to their design when the competition was rescheduled due to venue availability reasons,” says Mr. McHale. Year 10 team member Lewis sums up the event with typical YCIS enthusiasm. “In all, the competition was of friendliness and fun and all of the teachers and students enjoyed it.”