For the third time in four years, the Skyline High School Physics/Rocketry Club has qualified for Team American Rocketry Challenge, their national competition which will take place outside of Washington, D.C. on May 10. The club is eager to beat its 2013 score, ranking them the 71st best rocket-launching team in the country.

The Team America Rocketry Challenge is an annual competition sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and challenges students in grades 7–12 to work in groups to design, construct and launch a rocket built to specific requirements and to meet specific goals. The requirements and goals change each year. Participants, in addition to bragging rights, are competing for $60,000 in scholarships and prizes.

Rebecca Fowler, physics club advisor, explained that this year’s competition goal was to fly two raw hens’ eggs in a rocket, with a mass of less than 650 grams, to an altitude of exactly 825 feet and stay in the air (from lift-off to landing) for 48 to 50 seconds. Skyline placed in the top 100, earning its spot in the national finals.

Fowler said that this year’s qualifying team includes five seniors and three sophomores. Three of the seniors have been on the team since they were freshmen and it is the third time they have qualified for the national competition.

“The kids have been working on the design since the beginning of the year,” Fowler said. “Most of first semester was filled with designing and doing computer simulation tests, as well as ordering materials. Just before the end of first semester, they began the actual construction of the rocket and it was completed by the end of February.”

Fowler said they had some challenges due to weather conditions, but they did get several launches off the ground with scores that were good enough for an invitation to the national fly-offs.

The rocketry club leaves May 8, with the national competition Saturday, May 10. Fowler said that Skyline is one of two schools in the state to qualify this year. The other is Newport High School in Bellevue.

Kelly Montgomery:425-391-0363; kmontgomery@issaquahreporter.com