Neuqua Valley hoping for zoom over boom at rocketry competition
Rocket science is challenging enough, but throw a pandemic into the mix and preparing for a national contest becomes increasingly difficult.
“Trying to tell someone how to design a rocket over Zoom is kind of like giving a haircut over the phone,” Neuqua Valley High School rocketry adviser Anthony Tegtmeyer said.
Normally, the Naperville team would meet in person a couple times a week to work on their rockets. Preparation this year has included “a lot of videos and a lot of Zoom time, a lot more time and effort and communicating,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Atlas is headed to the 19th annual national finals for The American Rocketry Challenge, one of two Illinois high school teams to make it that far.
TARC, the world’s largest student rocket contest, is the Aerospace Industry Association’s flagship program that seeks to encourage middle and high school students to pursue STEM careers. Following a break last year due to the pandemic, the contest returns this month, offering teams a chance to win prizes ranging from $7,500 to $20,000.
On Friday and Saturday and June 19-20, teams from 27 states will compete at launch sites across the country. Neuqua Valley and the Redhawk Rocketeers from Lake Villa are among the 100 groups of finalists. The local teams will launch at Bong Recreation Area in Kansasville, Wisconsin.
The student teams have been working all year to prepare for the challenges they will face in building and launching a model rocket that carries one raw egg to two altitudes and time goals, with rocket and egg returning to the ground intact.
Each team gets two flights: the first goal is 775 feet within 39 to 42 seconds, the second is 825 feet within 41 to 44 seconds. Scores will be the sum of both two
flights.
Josh Hyatt, a recent Neuqua Valley graduate and one of the seven members on Atlas, emphasized the difficulty the
pandemic has imposed this past year. His team was the only one from six or seven at his school to make the finals this year.
The competition is
usually held in Washington, D.C., but this year will be spread out over 10 regions to comply with COVID-19 safety requirements. Hyatt said he thinks it will still be fun but will have a “different atmosphere.”
Off the table this year is the free trip to Paris for the international competition, which is usually awarded to the first-place winners of the national event. The trip was canceled because of the pandemic.
The students do enjoy the process, but “it’s not all fun and games; it’s like a sport,” Tegtmeyer said. “I’m really proud of these guys — they have worked super-duper hard. These (rockets) are all custom-designed and custom-made.”
And they didn’t let the obstacles stand in their way, he said.
“They’re troopers,” he said of the kids. “They’ve tried to stay really positive.”
And there won’t be any losers as long as they give it their best shot, Tegtmeyer said. As he often tells his students, he said: “Try and fail a lot. You don’t (really) fail unless you quit.”