TARC 2007 FINALISTS SPOTLIGHTS

Texas Team Overcame Last-Minute Obstacles to Qualify for First National Fly-Off
by Lauren, Airey, AIA Communications

Just three days before the Harlingen High School South rocket team hoped to launch its rocket and qualify for the Team America Rocketry Challenge final fly-off, the team's world came crashing down. Literally.

The rocket had reached 848 feet, just two feet short of their target height, before the parachute failed to eject and the team's rocket crashed full speed into the ground.

Despite the set-back, the rocket team remained hopeful -- if not optimistic -- about its chances to make the national fly-off in its first year of competition.

David Amaral on the left and Korie Williams on the right. Korie Williams, David Amaral, Edward G. Rodriguez from United Launch Alliance (formerly Lockheed), Shane Strubhart (sponsor), Viola Carrington (assistant principal), Arturo Cavazos (Assistant superintendent).

"David Amaral, the president of the rocket club, worked really hard for three days to piece it back together," Shane Strubhart, rocket team sponsor and computer networking teacher, said. "We kept the bottom intact, but we didn't have enough body material left to make a completely new rocket, so we had to trim off the fin section and add some tubing. We had a replica rocket within in three days."

With a cold front sweeping through Harlingen, Texas, on launch day and a disappointing first score, the four-student team made a few adjustments, launched into the rain and earned themselves a spot at the national fly-off on May 19.

Back in October, Strubhart put out the call to form a rocket team after Paul Tenison at Harlingen High School told him about TARC competition. Although he had little experience with rockets, Strubhart read a guide to model rocketry and asked the science department for some initial pointers. The new team also relied on their more experienced peers at Harlingen High School for advice.

"The science department gave us a bunch of small rockets, and the kids messed around with those until we ran out of engines," Strubhart said. "Our sister school visited us and they gave us a lot of ideas. Our design was totally different, but they probably saved us at least two months of testing errors. They were great mentors. If it hadn't been for them, we never would have been ready in time."

Both Harlingen High School and Harlingen High School South are sponsored in part by the United Launch Alliance. The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation formed ULA in December 2006, bringing together two of the space launch industry's most experienced and successful teams: the Lockheed Martin Atlas and Boeing Delta teams. In addition to the funding, Lockheed Martin Corporation gave students a tour of the Harlingen facility where components for the Atlas V launch vehicle are manufactured and its engineers offered to provide guidance and field technical questions from the rocket teams.

"With over half of our engineering and scientific work force able to retire in the next 5 to 10 years, it is important for us to make sure that our schools are creating an interest in the field of rocketry and are helping prepare the next generation of rocket engineers and scientists to continue our work and take our places in industry," Edward Rodriguez, manager of production engineering for ULA in Harlingen, said.

The team's first rocket was built by mid-January and, after a few software tests and a lot of trial and error, ready for launch. Despite a few early misfires and non-ejection launches, as well as the last-minute disaster with its original rocket, the team qualified for the national fly-off on the last Saturday before the April deadline. A contribution from ULA helped the team purchase everything it needed and offset the cost of attending the national fly-off in The Plains, Va.

"The hardest part was making sure the rocket was perfect since we were trying to hit a specific height and then get the parachute to deploy and come down," Korie Williams, Harlingen High School South sophomore, said. "As we progressed through the year, though, it became easier. Loading the engine and watching it fly was really fun. And working with explosives is always a big plus for me."

Pablo Vallejo, a Harlingen High School South junior, saw the rocket team as a way to explore an interest in rockets sparked by a middle school class on modular technology.

"It was really difficult because we needed to find a way to make the rocket launch quickly and then come down safely. In the first stages, the parachute was really bad and the eggs were breaking," Vallejo said. "Every time we got together, we would throw out ideas and put things together. Everybody worked really hard on it, so qualifying felt really good. We knew that we did our best and we put everything we had into it."