At the beginning of the second day of voting for the People’s Choice award at National Red Bull Flugtag Miami, the Gator Aviators were in last place. Max Famiglietti, Jon Kistemaker, Chris Roda, Aaron Alanguilan and Rocky Flood started rallying for support.
Flugtag, a Red Bull competition in which people fly homemade, human-powered machines, took place last weekend. The Gator Aviators took home the People’s Choice award.
Famiglietti, a 22-year-old UF mechanical engineering senior, sent about 2,000 text messages asking for votes. Roda and Flood sent emails over UF listservs and posted on their fraternity’s Facebook groups.
“We even resorted to doing backflips for votes,” said Roda, a 22- year-old UF mechanical and aerospace engineering senior.
The night before the Sept. 21 event, the team didn’t have much hope, said Flood, a 22-year-old UF chemical engineering senior.
At the end of the competition Saturday, the team earned 6,356 votes, which put them in first place for People’s Choice.
They won a VIP trip to New York to watch a New York Red Bulls soccer game from a luxury suite at the Red Bull Arena.
“We put a lot of work into this, so it felt really good when it actually paid off,” Famiglietti said.
A version of this story ran on page 8 on 9/27/2013 under the headline "Gator Flugtag team wins People’s Choice award"
