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Future Leaders Winner Setting Up Bright Future In Aerospace Engineering

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (CBS4) – Every month throughout the school year, CBS4, along with our partners at PDC Energy, honor a high school student who excels in science, technology, engineering, or math, STEM. The Future Leaders award comes with $1,000 and a profile on CBS4 News.

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The November winner is Alex Bostley, a senior at STEM Highlands Ranch. He calls calculus his favorite class, and is inspired by aerospace engineering. He is currently building a catapult.

"We go through and we create different projects under the specifications that they give us," Bostley told CBS4.

The catapult is one of the projects he's working on for the national Technology Student Association or TSA competitions.

"I'm doing this thing called Chapter Team, which is basically just parliamentary procedure. And, we go through different motions, and we all have different roles," Bostley explained.

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Bostley says that he excels in science and math, but he loves building things too.

"Basically, all my groups are just my friends and we're doing a lot of engineering feats that we really enjoy and that we find interesting," Bostley said.

He's using the same skills he learned doing TSA competitions, in an internship for Lockheed Martin.

"My current project is a manned lunar rover that would be able to support two or three humans as they go across the moon to like collect a sample, and then come back to the base," he said.

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"It's been a tough few years for you in high school, the shooting when you were a freshmen, COVID the last two years," said Ashton Altieri during his interview with Bostley.

"I was able to build a very strong support network with a lot of my friends, my teachers, and my peers that I still use to this day," he replied.

Despite the challenges his high school years have presented, Bostley has been able to thrive, and he looks forward to studying aerospace engineering and aeronautics in college.

LINKS: Nominate A Future Leaders Candidate

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