CONTEST EMAIL ARCHIVES
Date: 05/30/2006
Subject: Weare middle-schoolers compete in national rocketry challenge
Weare middle-schoolers compete in national rocketry challenge
By REBECCA T. DICKSON
Union Leader Correspondent
New Hampshire
Weare - A dozen Weare eighth-graders took home major bragging rights from Virginia last weekend, finishing ahead of 76 other teams in the only national rocket competition for middle and high school students.
Last Saturday, the students went to the Team America Rocketry Challenge and earned 24th place in the country and first place in New England. The team was also one of just six in the country that made it into the top 100 with middle-schoolers.
The fourth-annual event was the final round fly-off of the world's largest rocket contest. It requires students to design and build a model rocket that will fly to exactly 800 feet and stay aloft for exactly 45 seconds. The catch: On board is an egg, which must return to the ground without so much as a crack.
The Weare students flew their rocket for 40.31 seconds to an altitude of 779 feet. Good enough to place in the top 25, which opens new doors: Now, the students get to submit a proposal to NASA to design and build a rocket that will travel one mile in altitude. If their plan is chosen, team members will travel to Alabama to build the rocket with NASA.
"This is what we're capable of here," said an elated Mark Kibler yesterday. Kibler is the eighth-grade science teacher and team mentor.
The task requires the use of scientific instruments, extensive planning, backup preparation and precision. And these kids know their stuff.
Last week's aerial competition for more than 500 middle and high school students was intense. Each battled for a share of more than $60,000 in savings bonds and cash.
To get there, the Weare students first beat a field of mostly high-schoolers from Amesbury, Mass., simultaneously achieving one of the top 10 scores in the country.
Not bad considering this year was the first that the school had a rocket team. It also marked the first time that any Weare Middle School team qualified for any national competition.
"This goes well beyond academic brilliance," said Principal David Pabst. "It brings in the school, the whole community."
Yesterday, members showed off their displays on parachutes, regression analysis and Christa McAuliffe, in whose memory the team competed. (Team 4100, as they are known, also goes by "The Challengers.") They discussed weather patterns, barometric pressure, altitude, relative humidity, wind speed and temperature, and they showed off rocket parts most bystanders had never heard of.
Their commitment to the team didn't stop with the rocket.
When they found out they were heading to Virginia, they also knew they needed to earn $7,500 to finance the five-day trip. They made presentations to local businesses and civic groups, held a benefit dinner and received donations from families, raising more than $13,000 in a little less than a month.
For that work, the Team America Rocketry Challenge further honored them with the Most Entrepreneurial award, for raising the most funds of any team there.
In all, some 750 teams entered the competition; 678 had qualifying results. The top 100 were invited to Virginia.
This year, the first place team came from Statesville Christian School in North Carolina; their rocket flew to precisely 800 feet for 43.21 seconds. Two other New Hampshire teams made the top 100: Monadnock Regional High School, which ranked 76th, and Whitefield School, which ranked 93rd.
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