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I am doing my Ph.D. in engineering education, and I have a strong background in industry and research. I came up with this idea after identifying a huge gap of similar initiatives addressed to high school. By considering previous experience in similar competitions addressed to graduate level, I believe you can create a model addressed to get funding from competitions or even starting a new culture where you can you put the name of your organization on the radar. In 2011, I wrote a paper describing my project in Brazil to implement a national organization to improve student initiatives in control engineering (Freitas, C. C. S., Pereira, C. E., Farias, V. J. C., Sousa, C. M., & de Mesquita, B. D. R. (2011). SBA Jovem – Student Chapter of the Brazilian Automation Society: A New Approach in the Education of Control Engineering in Brazil. IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 44(1), 5166–5169. https://doi.org/10.3182/20110828-6-IT-1002.01139). In 2013, I also wrote another paper describing the importance of extracurricular activities to the educational development (C. C. S. d. Freitas, D. A. Figueiredo and Y. Iano, "Inclusion of extracurricular activities and student competitions in the curriculum structure for engineering education: Experience based on the Brazilian reality," 2013 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Kazan, 2013, pp. 793-800.). Both projects were awarded, and today I have more confidence in saying that this idea has potential to be developed in large scale considering the field in which your organization is interested in. Given existing efforts from the industry to put satellites and rockets on the space, the interest for this research field has been increasing more than ever. A large number of students are getting more and more interested in being part of this aerospace field at early stages at school. Commonly, aerospace challenges are designed to college and post-graduate level given the interest of companies in hiring students to participate in internship programs. However, there is a lack of initiatives addressed to high-school level. This lack of initiatives does not mean that there is no a massive interest of students and schools in participating in these challenges and you can explore this opportunity. In order to get funding for this initiative, I would propose a global (or even local competition) focused on high school level and sponsored by Astronautin where students should come up with engineering solutions addressed to solve or improving existing aerospace technologies. These solutions can be rocket competition, material science, or even rocket design, and astronaut comfort. Well, there are many ways in which this kind of competition should focus on. Of course, depending on your approach, you might invest more or less money at this initial stage. It is all about investiment. But my point with this suggestion relates to the several stakeholders and people interested in participating in initiatives like that. I will describe some of the parts that could be benefited with this idea. Schools - Depending on your business model, you can include high schools as potential stakeholders to enroll their students in these competitions for many reasons. First, by winning these competitions, schools improve their reputation and attract more students. Schools also can use these initiatives to promote their activities and foster STEM education. Depending on the model you adopt for this project, you can include local competitions organized by specific schools towards a global competition that can be handled online. By including small entry fees, you can start to create a budget that supports long-term initiatives and making this solution sustainable. Students - They want to be part of this aerospace world, but there is a lack of initiative to do so. Therefore, creating this project would put your organization on the radar to students around the world. They could use this competition as reference to engage in STEM projects and starting their career in this field through extracurricular activity. By increasing the number of students interested in these competitions and increasing its popularity, you can also attract the attention from schools, companies, and government. Industry - It is necessary to develop qualified engineers, and the industry want to foster initiatives addressed to do so. Competitions like that are interesting because you can motivate students by starting from earlier stages to get engaged into aerospace field, and consequently increasing the number of students interested in taking engineering courses after high school. Thus, you can get support from companies to sponsor these competitions by selling an opportunity for enhancing the quality of future engineers or even using these competitions as marketing to their companies. The main goal of my idea is creating a sustainable initiative for your organization get funding by exploring existing gaps in competitions addressed to aerospace engineering at high school level. I am not suggesting only an idea, but it is an opportunity to create a new culture and put the name of your organization among the most important global competitions related to aerospace engineering. GOOD LUCK IN YOUR PROJECT! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will be more than happy to provide help in this initiative if you need to. Find below my CV in case you are interested in this idea and you want to know more information. Claudio holds Bachelor’s degree in Control Engineering at Higher Education Institute of Amazonia (2011), and he holds his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of Campinas (2014). Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. at Purdue University in Engineering Education. He has experience as a visiting graduate researcher at the University of New Mexico (USA) and professional experience at K&A Wireless as a research associate in Albuquerque (USA). Additionally, he has professional experience at Hitachi Automotive Systems America as an Intern in Research & Development in Detroit (USA) and Senior Product Engineer at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in Brazil. He served as the President of Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (SPEED). Before joining SPEED, Claudio served as co-founder of the Student Chapter of the Brazilian Automation Society. Among his many achievements, his project was awarded the Best Student Initiative for Engineering Students promoted by Cengage Learning. He received the Leadership Award by ISTEC, and the Young Scientist Award supported by International Society for Engineering Education (IGIP). His project with electrical vehicle at the Unicamp E-Racing team was awarded with the first place at the national competition (Brazil) and international competition (USA), and he was selected in the Future Entrepreneurs Program promoted by Redemprendia.

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