Davao City high school team wins national space challenge, will test satellite experiment at UP

A team of senior high school students from Davao City National High School (DCNHS) will test its satellite communications experiment at the University of the Philippines-Diliman after winning a national space science competition, according to SunStar, citing the Department of Education (DepEd) Davao City.

The school's STEM-Earth and Space Team APOGEE won the Senior High School Category of the Philippine Space 2026 Patalasan sa #YamangKalawakan: The Full Anechoic Chamber Experiment Challenge. Their entry, titled "Characterizing Telemetry Degradation Caused by Simulated CubeSat Rotation and Antenna Polarization Mismatch," ranked first among 106 submissions from across the country.

The team is coached by Charis Faith D. Acquiadan. Its members are senior high school students Daniel Dave A. Garcia, Basha Therese J. Martinez, Ben Angelo S. Manla, Julian Chris I. Giducos and Rain Elmo C. Catapang.

In November, the team will travel to UP Diliman in Quezon City for a study tour and hands-on testing at the Full Anechoic Chamber of the UP Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute (UP-EEEI). There, the students will calibrate their equipment and carry out their CubeSat rotation experiment.

Acquiadan described the chance to test at the institute as "a game-changing milestone for the team," saying that access to professional-grade facilities helps connect high school STEM education with advanced university research. She also expressed gratitude for the opportunity.

Martinez said the team hopes its results will help satellite designers better understand signal loss related to antenna polarization and make better-informed choices of antennas for small satellites. She acknowledged that the research cannot address every communication challenge, but said the team hopes to contribute useful data to the field.