MSHS rocketry team earns 5th at nationals

A group of students from Muscle Shoals High School had a blast during last weekend’s American Rocketry Challenge national competition and earned fifth place while doing so.

The team earned fifth out of 100 teams representing 28 states at the contest in The Plains, Virginia.

“We had a great time at the American Rocketry Challenge National Fly-offs,” team sponsor Holly Brooks posted to the group’s social media. “We brought home 5th in the nation and the Spirit of the American Rocketry Challenge award. We are already thinking about next year’s challenge.”

While 100 teams made the cut for the national contest, a total of 922 from across 45 states entered the challenge this year, the most ever for the contest.

Since Tharptown High School from Russellville won the event, two of the top five teams were from Northwest Alabama. Both are mentored by a man named Andrew Heath, who himself competed in the rocketry competition during his school days.

“These kids are the future of aerospace and engineering in our area, so why not expand programs like this?” Brooks said.

Building a program

So how did the Trojans end up flying so high in the contest? It all started when Brooks decided to build a rocketry program at Muscle Shoals.

She said she had family members at other Northwest Alabama schools doing the same, and a similar program existed at the career academy around 2017-2018.

“I wanted to bring that to Muscle Shoals High,” she said. “I started the program during the 2019-2020 school year with five to six boys that didn’t get to compete because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The next year the team did enter the challenge but “didn’t do so hot” because of lack of time to work on the rocket.

However, in 2022 four MSHS students made the cut for the national contest and placed 20^th.

Then, a disappointing setback. Last year, the group failed to qualify for nationals.

“They were devastated,” Brooks said. “When it came time to qualify for this year, they were determined to bounce back. They worked hard all year and earned wonderful scores when they did their qualifying in March.”

They did so well, in fact, that all three rocketry teams from MSHS scored high enough to make the national cut. However, only two teams per school or program can enter.

So, Brooks took the third team and split its members among the top two. That way, all 14 members of the Muscle Shoals High School rocketry program would get to compete.

Team rocket blasts off again

Two teams of seven students each represented MSHS at the national competition.

As part of the qualifying process, students are tasked with building a rocket under specific guidelines.

Once built, the students are tasked with flying the rocket to 825 feet in a process taking between 43 and 46 seconds while carrying an egg that must not be damaged, so the rockets return to earth under a parachute.

When it is time for a competition launch, the students are not allowed to do any more research. They are only allowed the data they have collected up until that point.

Brooks said the launches are scored for how close they are to the target height as well as whether the launch and return lasts in the allotted time frame, after the egg is checked to make sure it remains unbroken.

For each foot or second off, the team gets a point. Lowest number of points wins. For the national competition, the target altitude was 850 feet.

MSHS Team 1 was off by only three feet and one second for a score of 8.28 on the first launch.

The top 24 teams then made one last launch, where MSHS Team 1 was given a score of 15.32. The two scores were combined for a total of 23.6, good enough for fifth place.

Winner Tharptown had four points for comparison, while MSHS Team 1 trailed fourth place by only 1.6 points.

“It’s kind of surreal,” Brooks said of the achievement. “All you want as a sponsor is for your kids to succeed and feel like they’ve learned something. It’s exciting because none of these students are seniors, so it gives me hope for the future of the program. We went from four to 14 students at nationals, and getting to see their faces light up when they succeed says it all.”

MSHS Team 2 did not do so well, unfortunately. Their first launch earned 73.56 points and 70^th place.

However, the team did not go away empty handed. The Team 2 members impressed competition runners so much on their character they were awarded the Spirit of the American Rocketry Challenge award.

“That was an unexpected award,” Brooks said. “It is given to the team that embodies what the spirit of the competition is — teamwork, sportsmanship, the ability to work together and team spirit. It’s not chosen by the volunteers working competition. They see the kids, watch the teams and see how they interact. It meant a lot to me and them for them to be chosen. Others saw even though they didn’t have a successful first flight, they picked each other up.”

As for next year, the sky may truly be the limit. All 14 of the MSHS rocketry students have re-applied for the next school year.

Brooks said she is considering adding four more students for 18 total, a number she said she is trying to keep “manageable.”

“When we started out, I had no clue about rocketry,” Brooks said. “Andrew has been a great resource. He was on the Russellville team that won nationals in 2015. He has helped rocketry grow in the area. Five of the seven teams from Alabama in the contest were from Northwest Alabama.”