Spanish-speaking Stone students make the finals of model-rocket contest

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama USA — How do you say "rocket boys" in Spanish? Try Jose Veliz, Jose Mendoza and Oliester Martinez.

The three Stone Middle School eighth-graders will compete in the finals of the Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world's largest model-rocket contest, this week in Great Meadow, Virginia. The Stone team is one of 100 set to compete in the national contest, out of 690 teams that attempted to meet the contest's requirement to fly an egg 850 feet into the air and bring it back down safely.

To build a rocket that could soar to such heights, the boys began in November to meet each weekend at the home of Barbara and Mike Murphy. Barbara Murphy teaches at Stone and noted the boys' gifts at science and math. She persuaded her husband, an engineer in the missile defense industry, to be a mentor to the boys.

While their English is limited — the longest any of them has been in the U.S. is 18 months — the boys were able to navigate the computer software that helped them design their rocket. Mike Murphy, who speaks no Spanish, also called on other engineers to help. He has a friend who works for Boeing who speaks Spanish.

"I asked him if he knew any Boeing engineers who would help mentor the boys and be a language bridge," Murphy said. "Almost every weekend, I had a different Boeing engineer work with us."

The engineers' gift of their time and their help impressed the three boys.

"They told us everything about rockets, and they made it really fun," Jose Veliz said through the translation help of Stone student Melisa Restropa.

The journey to the rocket contest wasn't easy. The boys had many trials and errors before they got a working rocket. One trial rocket landed in a tree, which Oliester climbed to retrieve their project.

"They put an awful lot into this," Murphy said.

The boys' trip to Virginia will include an excursion to tour Washington, D.C. They've also been invited to the Mexican Embassy. The Mexican Consulate in Atlanta also plans to recognize the boys' accomplishments in a ceremony.

The competition at the national finals will be tough, but if the wind is blowing right and luck is with them, the boys can do quite well, Murphy said. Their qualifying score for the finals would have put them in the top five in last year's competition. The contest offers $60,000 in prizes and scholarships to the top teams, and the winning team will win a trip to the Paris Air Show in June.

"We'd like to see it, for our school and for them," Barbara Murphy said.

She wanted the three boys to take part in the rocket project to introduce them to "a whole different way of thinking and opportunities," she said. She also wanted them "to have a project or program to work on to help them feel more connected to the community."

"Our country was founded on the principle of all people from all countries working together," she said. "Everybody should be given the chance to succeed."