A team of Richmond Hill Middle School STEM students were recently crowned National Champions in the NASA Student Astronaut Challenge at Kennedy Space Center.

STEM is short for science, technology, engineering and math. More than 70 teams participated in the competition, which consisted of four events.

These events included an engineering challenge, a focused experimental lab proposal, a mission in the NASA Space Shuttle simulator and a landing challenge.

Richmond Hill was one of four Georgia teams to attend the competition and the Wildcats finished third in the research proposal and second in the landing challenge.

William James Middle School from Bulloch County placed first in the research proposal and Isle of Hope finished second in the simulator challenge.

The overall award was determined by averaging the scores of the four events. Benjamin Franklin Middle School, Florida, finished third; Holy Comforter Episcopal School, Florida, placed second.

The championship team from RHMS was led by John Melcher and Patrick Welch and included Ethan Falls, Savannah Flanagan, James Ganun, Jackson Martin, Riley Mayberry, James Shin and Jacob Welch.