The American Spatial Agency NASA awarded two Romanian high school teams from Bucharest in a contest where participants from 12 countries took part. The youngsters were asked to design proposals for adapting supersonic jets for commercial flights.

Muraru Costin Grigore, Felix Liviu Milorad and Muraru Sebastian, all 11th graders from Tudor Vianu College from Bucharest, won the 1st place for team projects.

Romania Tudor Vianu College also won the second place: Vlad Adam, Ana Maria Borlovan, Roberta Raileanu and Sabina Zavoianu, 11th graders as well. The third place was awarded to Greek students from Athens. The individual proposal award went to Singaporean student Sidhart Krishnan.

120 high school students entered 60 proposals in four categories, submitting both group and individual proposals. The competitors could either design a research addressing the challenges and solutions for supersonic flights, or come up with a commercial supersonic jet proposal that could be implemented by 2020.

"All concepts were creative and innovative", a NASA researcher said after analysing the proposals arrived from all parts of the world. The jury took into consideration the way the students documented their cases and the way they respected main principles, such as the documented content, creativity, imagination, organisation and the written elaboration.