Students from high school diploma receive a award for the development of a satellite that estimates the emperor penguin population in the Antarctic.

Four students have been awarded for the development of a satellite emulator that simulates images of Antarctica with the goal to estimate the population of the emperor penguin.

The competition, organized by Tecnun-University of Navarra using the program of laboratory Beaver Works of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has as goal to bring engineering closer to students of high school diploma through a real problem. This was pointed out by Professor Daniel Valderas during the submission awards ceremony held at Tecnun: "The thaw caused by global warming is having an impact on emperor penguin colonies".  

Through this project and based on the excretions of penguins, students have made an estimate of the current population, as explained by the teacher, who added that "this subject of technological experiences help them to decide on their professional future".
In the first edition of this competition, called "Tecnun Cubesat Challenge", students from Erain, Santo Tomás Lizeoa and Summa Aldapeta schools have participated, who have worked for six months with the Engineering students Juan Lacosta, Sara Arcelus, Iñigo Moreno and Ainhoa Iza. 

With the goal to emulate Antarctica on the computer, the students took and received photographs that they processed with a program. In this way, as Juan Lacosta explained during the awards ceremony submission , "the image was converted into black and white and they could easily see the contrast between the two colors, the white being the snow and the black being the brown feces of the penguins". Thanks to the percentage of each color, the schoolchildren have estimated the population of this animal. 

The jury, made up of members of a team from the Beaver Works at the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), assessed the quality of the exhibition of work and awarded the first prize award to José Mari Girbau, Carlos Arriola, Xabier Ganuza and Pablo Bravo. The classified students Aieko Zumeta, Garazi Goikoetxea and Julen Barragan also participated in the event.

 In addition, during the submission awards ceremony, there has been a lecture to position of the CEO of business Semi Zabala, Simon Wainwright, who has spoken to them about the challenges of the aerospace sector and has encouraged them to "keep working for the future".

At the end of the event, the students, accompanied by their families, were able to enjoy an aperitif that was also attended by professionals from the School such as Mikel Arcelus, Irene de Vicente, Manuel Sánchez, Erain teacher Iñaki Cires, as well as family members.