Colville Rocket Club Qualifies For National Finals

Colville High School’s Rocket Club is headed to the national stage after qualifying as one of 100 finalists in the American Rocketry Challenge. 

The team sent their flight submissions to the American Rocketry Challenge team in March, the organization then announced the top finalists on April 6. Colville will compete on May 16 at the National Finals in The Plains, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The competition brings together the top teams from across the country after months of designing, building, and launching model rockets.

Team members who qualified are students Vincent Fazzari, Luke Bateman, Cruz Bateman, Carrie Pecsenyicki, Euzhene Roy, Gabe Harper, Zach Harper, Kellan Horrocks, Cade Bateman, and Zack Bateman.

The team is advised by retired teacher Jim Christian, who first introduced Colville students to the contest 20 years ago, and Jared Bateman, who is in his first year helping with the team.

Christian said Colville High School has qualified for nationals in 2006 and  2019.

This year’s American Rocketry Challenge featured 1,107 teams, the most in the competition’s history, with more than 6,200 middle and high school students from 44 states, Washington, D.C., and the Northern Mariana Islands. Each team was required to design, build, and launch a model rocket that could safely carry one raw egg to an altitude of 750 feet, remain airborne for between 36-39 seconds, and return safely to the ground.

Christian said scores are determined by how close each rocket comes to the target altitude and flight time. Teams receive one point for every foot above or below the 750-foot target. Time is scored by multiplying the number of seconds above 39 seconds or below 36 seconds by four. A perfect score is zero.

Teams had to launch in front of an official observer and submit their best two scores from three qualification flights, with the scores added together.

The American Rocketry Challenge does not publish qualification scores before the championship flyoff, but Christian said teams were notified that the minimum score needed to make the top 100 was 21.4.

“The CHS (Colville High School) team’s combined score was less than half of that,” Christian said.

The national competition gives Colville students a chance to compete for the title of national champion. The winning team will represent the United States at the International Rocketry Challenge in July at the Farnborough Air Show in London, the world’s second-largest aerospace trade show. The world’s largest show is the Paris Air Show. 

Teams at nationals also will compete for $100,000 in awards. The top 25 teams will automatically become eligible to earn a spot in NASA’s Student Launch Initiative.

Christian said Colville is the only Washington state team east of the Seattle area to qualify this year. No teams from Idaho or Oregon qualified.

Christian said the team is focused on raising enough money to travel to  the East Coast.

“The biggest challenge currently facing the CHS students is the amount of money required to send the team to D.C. to represent the school and community,” Christian said. “They will be doing various fundraisers for the remainder of the school year and probably into the summer and would greatly appreciate any support that is offered.”

More information about the American Rocketry Challenge is available at rocketrychallenge.org.