Auburn High School’s Ashley Allman, Sarah Frederick and Bret Renschler, Auburn Mountainview’s Justis Tena, Corey Smith and Travis Dietz and Jefferson’s Ari Schumer graduated from the Washington Aerospace Scholars Summer Residency Program.

There were among 154 students from the state who qualified for the program.

The seven students from Auburn spent six months studying a NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum via the Internet. They were selected to attend one of the four residences host by The Museum of Flight. During the residency experience, they collaborated with other students on the design of a human mission to Mars. WAS scholars are guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators as they these missions.

In addition, WAS scholars participated in other hands-on engineering challenges, including design, construction and deployment of robotic rovers, model rockets, lander devices and payload lofting systems.