Jefferson County will be represented by three schools in the 22nd annual American Rocketry Challenge on Saturday in The Plains, Va., just outside Washington D.C.
Rocketry teams from Fox High School, Seckman Middle School and Festus High School are among the 100 squads that qualified for the competition. The American Rocketry Challenge said 922 teams competed for a spot in the national competition.
The three Jefferson County schools are among six teams from Missouri to reach the finals, joining Center High School in Kansas City and two teams from the Richards R-5 School District in West Plains.
“I feel like we are representing Missouri well,” said Tom Laybourn, a Fox High School chemistry teacher and the school’s rocketry team sponsor.
Festus team members senior Cohen Trupiano, senior Matthew Vaughn, junior Tyler Trost and junior Owen Zinn holding their rocket after submitting their qualification flights.
Festus team sponsor Devin Lorenz, a band teacher, was the sponsor when the school won the international rocketry title in 2017. He said this is the first time the team qualified for the national competition since 2019.
“It feels good to return,” said Lorenz, who was a rocketry team member when he attended Festus High. “I am really happy for the students, especially the seniors who have been doing this for a while.”
Fox High and Seckman Middle are sending teams to the competition for the first time.
Laybourn said the middle school team was created two years ago, and this is the first year Fox High has had a team.
The Seckman Middle team is led by Roger Foster, an applications engineer at Orizon, an aerospace and defense business in Fenton.
Seckman Middle School rocketry team members execute a practice launch.
“We do all of our stuff together,” said Laybourn, who started the rocketry club at Seckman Middle last school year when he began teaching in the Fox C-6 School District and then formed the Fox High club this school year. “We consolidated so we can share knowledge.”
Laybourn said up to 10 students are allowed to represent rocketry teams at the national competition.
Fox High team members expected to participate in the national competition include Lea Lepp, AJ Riddell, Plaumen Evstatiev, Heidi Brockmann, Paige Metcalf, Tanner Klotz and Jackson Klotz.
Seckman Middle team members expected to compete include Erin Anderson, Jackson Haegele, Isaiah Busch, Lily Carbone, Jack Kamradt, Khloe Foster, Ian Remsbecker and Aaden Bell.
Festus team members expected to compete are Kat Carr, Cohen Hale, Avin Luo, Abie Luo, Lillian Smith, Tyler Trost, Cohen Trupiano, Matthew Vaughn and Owen Zinn.
Laybourn said competing in the national competition is an amazing experience. He said teams he sponsored in the Northwest School District advanced to the event twice.
“When you consider there are 922 teams who compete and only 10 kids can go to D.C., you are competing against almost 10,000 of the brightest kids in the United States, and that is a pretty steep cut,” he said. “When the kids get there, you see the pride. It is a real shot in the arm for them. How many times do you get a sponsored trip to the nation’s capital? It is a big deal. It is life-changing for some of these kids.”
To reach the national competition, teams design, build and launch model rockets that safely carry one large hen egg to an altitude of 820 feet, stay airborne for between 43 and 46 seconds and return the rocket to the ground safely.
“There is some finesse involved,” Laybourn said. “We started in the summer to design (the rocket). It is all designed by the students. It is remarkably satisfying to see these kids grow as they build this stuff. It is very rewarding.”
Laybourn said the Seckman Middle team qualified for nationals in late March, and the Fox High team qualified on April 2.
“Seckman’s launch was really good,” he said. “They nailed it. Those kids put a lot of effort into it.
“(Fox High) pulled it off and stepped up when it was time to execute. It was a windy day, and we were running out of time to qualify. I was skeptical that it was going to work, but the kids pulled it off.”
Lorenz said Festus qualified on March 27. He said the team members are excited for the upcoming trip, and he said it is hard to predict how the squad will perform in the competition.
“The sky is the limit,” he said. “The first year I was teaching (in 2017), there was no team before, and that was the year they took first place and went on to Paris to take first place.”
The winner of the competition will receive an all-expense paid trip to the International Rocketry Challenge at the Farnborough Air Show in England, as well as $100,000. The top 25 teams will receive invitations to NASA’s Student Launch workshop.
“Ultimately, just getting there is great,” Laybourn said. “Anything beyond just getting there is icing on the cake. It is a victory with just what (the students) have done right now.”