Two local high school students receive awards from NASA

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WDTV) – Two local high school students have been awarded NASA Robotics Alliance Project (RAP) Medals of Excellence.

Shawn Li and William Patrick Weiss, two members of the Mountaineer Area RoboticS (MARS) Team 2614, received the awards for 2024 and 2023, respectively, and were recently honored in a ceremony at NASA’s Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility.

The Medal of Excellence in robotics recognizes students who demonstrate technical skills, exemplary teamwork and leadership abilities, NASA officials said.

Li was honored for his “exceptional skills as the lead programmer and driver, being technically capable and one of the best programmers MARS has ever had,” while Weiss was awarded for his “exceptional skills as the mechanical subteam lead, quickly acclimating to the team and earning the respect of teammates and coaches and for outstanding leadership and engineering critical to the success of MARS in 2023.”

The MARS Team, which is sponsored in part by the NASA IV&V Program, is an internationally recognized FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Hall of Fame high school robotics team based in Morgantown with a mission to inspire youth throughout the state and the world.

For more on MARS Team 2614, contact info, and their efforts, visit: https://www.marsfirst.org/.

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