East Fairmont Middle students learn more than just rocketry at national competition
THE PLAINS, Va. — Owen Armentrout and Brooklyn Myers tried to figure out how to balance their team's rocket on a scale while the rest of their 7th grade team gave them suggestions.
East Fairmont Middle students returned to the American Rocketry Challenge May 17, eager to compete against the Top 100 teams from around the country at the National Finals.
Weight was crucial. In order to qualify for launch, the rocket had to be below a target weight. Each piece of tape they added to secure the nose cone to the body brought them closer to the weight limit, with a margin of error of only grams. The team labored under one of the tents set up for students to prepare their rockets for launch.
There was momentum to preserve. The flight competition was split into two launches, with different target altitudes set for each launch. Teams had to reach 815 feet on the first launch, and 765 feet on the second. Scoring was based on a combination of factors, not just altitude reached, and worked like it does in golf — lower is better. On their first run, Ready Fire, EFHS's 7th grade team, scored a 6.64. The lowest score was a 51.16.
What made it more impressive was this was their first time building rockets.
'I've always been obsessed with engineering, I've always loved aviation,' Uriah Buckhalt said. 'I'm more into planes and things but, I saw a STEM team that actually competed and was a lot more than my little 5th and 6th grade teams so I signed up.'
East Fairmont Middle sent a second team of eighth graders named the Jolly Raptors. The team was composed of Kelcie Criss, Kyle Hauser, Sloan Nichols and Aubrey Stevenski. Unfortunately, they were knocked out of the launch competition in the first round. Only the top 42 teams advanced to round two.
Barbara Pill, a teacher at EFMS as well as one of the National Association of Rocketry officials overseeing the event, said the teams designed their rockets using computer assisted design software, which is tested through a simulation program called Rocket Sim. The teams design the fins, nose cones, motor mount, every part of the rocket. Some pieces are even 3-D printed. Other pieces, such as the parachute, require more traditional skills such as sewing.
Pill began EFMS's rocketry team in 2012. The team had its genesis in some educator workshops she took with local space wizard Todd Ensign, a NASA program manager focused on community outreach and education. Ensign runs the Education Resource Center at the NASA IV&V center in the High Tech Park in Fairmont.
'I thought it would be fun to get into doing something like this, starting a STEM program,' Pill said. 'I went to a STEM workshop at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and I came like, I want to do this, I want to do this thing. I wanted to do the rockets, robots and everything, and Todd told me they were looking for teachers to start STEM programs at middle schools.'
Pill said Marion County is pretty much home to West Virginia Rocketry. Ensign is president for the North Central West Virginia NAR chapter. He officiates all the launches and does qualification squares.
The team is part of a district wide push to emphasize science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM. North Marion High also has a team but did not have one this year. Fairmont Senior High had teams in the past, but in recent years has focused on robotics. The state as a whole has been pushing STEM education, as it tries to place more of its economy in the high tech industry. The competition advances the STEM goals of both the school district and state.
'The goal of this competition truly is to inspire and grow the next generation of STEM leaders,' Jessica Pederson, senior director for the American Rocketry Challenge and STEM engagement, said. 'This competition focuses a lot on more of the engineering principles, but also developing critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork and leadership. And really, just having a better awareness of what opportunities are in the STEM world.'
The competition started 23 years ago, Pederson said. One of the Top 10 competitors from the inaugural event, Warren Hoburg, is now an astronaut. He was at the 2024 competition as an example of what kinds of opportunities the competition and STEM opens up for students.
Back at competition, team Ready Fire prepares for launch. Having passed all their preflight checks, they head out to pad 5 and wait their turn. However, things did not go as planned.
'Our rocket faced very high winds,' Buckhalt said. 'We got a 50-something. There's still a chance we could place, but our hopes aren't very high.'
While first place was the envy of every team, with a trip to France to the Paris Air Show and a chance to compete in the International Rocketry Challenge. However, the Top 10 competitors also earned the right to bring money home from the competition. First place brought $20,000 for the team, and 10th place brought $1,500.
Ready Fire landed in 17th place.
However, failure is just as big a part of the competition and rocketry as a whole. It's certainly part of NASA's ethos, which has seen it's share of failures, such as losing a $125 million probe over Mars after an engineer failed to convert from English to metric units for the spacecraft's orbital insertion maneuver. At least the middle schoolers were only working with plastic, cardboard and balsa wood.
'Our can-do spirit comes from trying and trying and trying again,' Elaine Ho, NASA associate administrator for the office of STEM engagement, said. 'We're not going to get things right on the first time, we are conquering problems that are first of their kind, that people have never thought of before. I mean, the complexity of the problems, we need to expect to fail, but also learn from that so we can keep going.'
Considering the students scored a 6 on their first launch, beating other students with much more experience on that round, what they managed was quite the achievement nonetheless.
Despite not breaking into the Top 10, they were still in the Top 25, which means they received an invitation to participate in NASA's Student Launch Initiative, a nine-month challenge that gives students access to the good stuff — bigger rockets and more powerful engines.
Before the day ended, the team was already talking about the refinements they could make to their rocket for next year. They're taking NASA's lessons on failure to heart.
'It teaches us that just because you do it good one time doesn't mean it's gonna do it good every time,' Team Captain Owen Armentrout said. 'It teaches us to adjust better.'
Buckhalt pointed out to that to be 17th in the nation out of a 1,000 teams competing nationwide is still an achievement. Only the Top 100 teams received invitations to compete at the national event.
Buckhalt said now that they have more experience they'll do better next year. One mistake he said was launching in gusty wind. During launch, teams could, and did, delay their launches for more favorable conditions. But he's not letting teams with more experience get him down.
'People who have done this for years and years, people who had a lot more money than us, and you know to come that close with the little resources we have and little experience we have is incredible,' he said. 'It gives me high hopes for next year, and the years to come.'
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