ROCKET CLUB

Inner City Goes for Outerspace

HISD High School for Engineering Professions at Booker T. Washington

Aerospace Rocketry Team Qualifies For National Competition at World’s Largest

Rocketry Contest

Houston , TX – Six Houston Independent School District ninth graders who had never built a rocket before from a school that had never entered the contest before, beat out over 690 teams of seasoned seniors and rocket enthusiast nationwide to qualify to attend the national fly-off on May 19, 2007.  All of this interest and ability was ignited by the BP Physics Challenge program.  BP sponsored this dynamic and imaginative hands-on math and science program for HISD students. The program included learning physics through a detailed rocket launching experiment.  It seems the lesson took, and now the students are taking off for the finals.

Nearly 7,000 students on 690 teams nationwide attempted to qualify for the
Team America Rocketry Challenge competition is sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association in partnership with NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the American Association of Physics Teachers and 39 corporate partners including 3M, Lockheed Martin, GE, and Honeywell and was established to encourage student interest and vocational choices in the fields of science, physics and aerospace engineering.

The contest requires that a team design, build and test a model rocket with the goal of 850 feet, a total time from lift-off to touchdown of 45 seconds, with an egg payload that is returned unharmed. To further complicate matters, the team was required to designate the qualifying flight to officials BEFORE the flight.

The HSEP team made numerous trips to NASA to test their rockets. With the deadline approaching, the team made their qualifying launch in the pouring rain on Easter weekend. The rain meant they had one shot because the rockets are made of coated paper and water would significantly alter the flight parameters. They had two rockets. The first one fizzled. They had one shot left. They designated the launch and it flew 850 feet EXACTLY in a time of 55 seconds with payload in tact.

The kids and their teacher/mentor Dr. Nghia Le have put in hundreds of extracurricular hours building, learning and understanding the aerodynamics and mastering aerospace engineering software. Dr. Le said, “The contest is an excellent opportunity for students to learn hands-on lessons in aerodynamics. Participants learn to manipulate physics concepts like trajectory computations and drag coefficient.”

Winners of the May 19, 2007 fly-off in Washington D.C./The Plains, Virginia not only win their share of over $60,000 in cash and scholarships, but the are eligible to attend the International Paris Air Show in June, completely sponsored by Raytheon, an AIA member company.

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