An all-girl team of whiz kids from 'Iolani School won the Department of Energy's 2009 Real World Design Challenge Saturday at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Fifty-four high school students from 10 states competed in the national challenge.

"I would like to offer my congratulations to all of the students who competed in the Real World Design Challenge," Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said. "Today's competition shows that U.S. students, when challenged to excel, are able to perform at the highest levels in science, math and engineering."

Members of the winning team are Amy Ko, Adeline Li, Anya Liao, Celia Ou, Jessica Lynn Saylors, Julia Zhang and coach Carey Inouye.

The new annual competition provides high school students with the opportunity to apply the lessons of the classroom to important energy and environment technical problems encountered in the engineering field. The purpose is to inspire students to become engineers. The theme for the 2009 Challenge was "Aviation and Fuel Consumption."

The 'Iolani team won a contribution of $3,000 to their school's science/technology department, a Real World Design Challenge trophy and a model of the Cessna Citation X aircraft, provided by the Cessna Aircraft Co. Each team member also received an iPod Shuffle, courtesy of Parametric Technology Corp.

Student teams were asked to redesign an aircraft to maximize its fuel efficiency while meeting specific performance capabilities. Students used professional engineering software, donated at no cost by Parametric Technology Corp., to develop their solutions.

The final competition was judged by industry and academic experts from Cessna Aircraft Co., NASA, Lockheed Martin Corp., the Education Development Center; the Air Force, the National Science Foundation, and the Parametric Technology Corp.

The Real World Design Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, in partnership with Parametric Technology Corp., Cessna Aircraft Co., the Federal Aviation Administration, and the states of Hawai'i, Connecticut, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.