WASHBURN, Illinois USA — The lunch hour for a handful of students at Lowpoint-Washburn High School goes something like this: Grab a tray full of food from the cafeteria, head to Mr. Grace's science classroom, launch a rocket.

Eight students at the rural school on the border of Woodford and Marshall counties make up one of 690 teams around the country trying to qualify for Team America Rocketry Challenge, an annual event sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association that rewards winning teams with scholarships and other prizes.

This year's project challenges students to design and build a rocket that will transport a raw egg intact to an altitude of 850 feet and back down in 45 seconds. One hundred qualifying teams will compete in Virginia on May 19.

"Right at the beginning of the year, I got a flier from the AIA," said Mel Grace, a retired teacher from the Gridley district who now teaches science courses part time at the Washburn school. "It was laying on my desk and two of my kids saw it."

Those two were Tyler Kuehn and Marcus Sanders, both 17 and juniors, who had previously built model rockets as part of 4-H projects.

"It's something to do," Sanders said recently before a test launch that ultimately had to be aborted because of strong wind. "It's something to keep us occupied."

It's also an exercise in scientific reasoning and a method that combines the application of technology with an ability to learn from mistakes.

"There's a lot of variables," Grace said. "A lot of it they can do with a computer, but a lot of it is trial and error."

The students have used AutoCAD, a software package commonly used in engineering and design that uses basic lines and shapes to virtually construct just about anything, in the design of their rockets.

The cardboard tubes that make up the body of the rocket have to contain an egg, an altimeter to measure the height reached by the vessel, a parachute, a commercially-produced engine and second mildly explosive charge to break the rocket apart and deploy the parachute.

The project's prerequisite of student-made materials has conjured ingenuity on the part of participants. A couple of students took up sewing to attach mesh linings to parachutes - made out of lightweight materials like nylon lining and plastic tablecloths.

When a chute didn't open after a recent launch, Kuehn searched for a way to reduce friction and keep the folded parachute from sticking to itself.

As he sprinkled talcum powder on it before a test this week, another student asked, "Will it work?"

"I don't know," he responded. "But it can't hurt."

The group's qualifying results are due to the AIA by April 9, and the Lowpoint-Washburn students will know whether they're headed to nationals by April 13. The winning team at the competition in Virginia will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the international competition in Paris later in the year.