Ladies and gentlemen, this is the face of a champion. Alyssa, as a brand new 8 year old, cleans up at the RAMTEC 13 event in Pennsylvania, the beginning of a trend.

SOUTH WINDSOR, Connecticut USA — What would you call an 8 year old girl who set six national NAR competition records in one weekend, three of which she set after she left in mid-event and crushed all of the boys in a mid-Atlantic karate tournament? I would call her a serious competitor.

NAR competition is often considered by some to be a confusing endeavor, one often only mastered by the veterans.  The truth of the matter is that NAR competition has been attracting some new talent lately and not necessarily those participants who are considered as the stereotypical competitor.

Alyssa Stenberg, an 8 year old member of the National Association of Rocketry who lives in South Windsor, Connecticut, recently caught the competition bug. According to her dad, Jon Stenberg, Alyssa loves games and competing. "One would not peg her as a do-or-die competitor but she loves to compete for the sake of competing and the possibility of winning a prize," her father said. "When she found out that one could compete at rockets, she immediately wanted to try it out. She didn't realize at first that it took a LOT of work."

SLIDESHOW: Just so you know that girls like to get dirty too, here is a slide show of Alyssa at work on her fleet.

MORE ON THIS STORY:
SLIDESHOW: Photos of Alyssa's A Rocket Glider.
SLIDESHOW: Photos of Alyssa's G SuperRoc flight.
Video of Alyssa's G SuperRoc Duration record launch at Red Glare III this past October. Video courtesy: CATO.

Her father grew up in Michigan's farm country, and was into rocketry during the late 70's when he was in his teens. Now Jon is an executive with UBS, a global financial services firm offering wealth management, investment banking, asset management and business banking services. Alyssa's mother, Carolyn, runs an aviation art business on the Web at stenbergaa.com. Together, they have raised someone who has competition in her blood.

Alyssa began attending model rocket launches when she was just six years old. Her father said her first rocket flight resulted in tears, from being scared of the rocket's loud sound. It would appear that she has overcome her early reaction. This past summer, Alyssa got her first taste of a big event, when she attended NERRF 3 in Pine Island, New York.

Once Alyssa had made the decision she was going into NAR competition, she had to get busy because the next event was only six weeks away. That event, RAMTEC 13, was held at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania this past Labor Day Weekend, September 1-2, 2007.

Alyssa's very first contest launch.

Alyssa's first record, B Egg Loft Altitude.

According to her father, Alyssa only had sport models at hand, so she had to start from scratch. She would have to build two rocket gliders, a rocket for helicopter duration, a rocket for streamer duration, an egg lofter and a rocket that would hit 150 meters on the nose. "At first there was frustration as she did not know any of the techniques for building competition models, and certainly had no idea how to manage the project so that the models were completed in time for the competition," her father said. "She nearly gave up but she was determined to compete."

The results were nothing short of breathtaking. On her last day as a 7 year old, Alyssa took first place in the egg loft, rocket glider and set altitude events, and came out the overall Division A (7 through 13 year olds) champion, all while facing stiff competition from Katherine Humphrey, a skilled NARAM/FAI veteran competitor. Alyssa set the B Egg Loft Altitude national record during the event as well, her first in a succession of national records to come.

A proud and impatient father waits for Alyssa's flights to be announced.

"She had never imagined she would win, let alone set a new US record in the process," said the proud father. "This really triggered something inside of her."

Alyssa set her sights on more records, and with Red Glare III coming up the next month in Price, Maryland, she began building the launch vehicles necessary to compete in the F and G power range. Red Glare, hosted on the Higgs Dairy Farm, is perfect for record attempts due to the large recovery area.

So Alyssa began another marathon building program, with her working nearly every night. The Red Glare event nearly turned into a bust, as 25-30 MPH winds on both Friday and Saturday made record attempts nearly impossible. Undeterred, Alyssa made a number of attempts in the winds and set three more national records the first two days, nailing the F Egg Loft with a 97 second duration, the G Egg Loft with a 153 second duration and G Helicopter with a 105 second duration. Not a bad result for not-so-optimal conditions.

The third day was supposed to be better, weather-wise, but unfortunately that day was reserved for another of Alyssa's competitive events: a big mid-Atlantic karate tournament, where she would be competing. At the karate tournament, Alyssa ended up upsetting the boys in the meet and winning the overall event, showing the boys just how it should be done.

Alyssa took the overall event at the Worldwide Kenpo Karate Championships 2007 in Baltimore, MD, in the middle of her competition record setting weekend in October, 2007.

But Alyssa wasn't finished! Between her and her father, they convinced Alyssa's mother to head back to Higgs Dairy Farm instead of beginning the 10 hour drive home. She had more records she wanted to attain, and attain them she did!

That afternoon, after besting all of the boys in karate, Alyssa set three more national records: F Streamer Duration at 87 seconds, F Helicopter Duration at 108 seconds and G Super-Roc Duration with 32614 points. Super-Roc Duration points are calculated as the "length of rocket in cm times duration in seconds, where length is required to be between 225 and 450 cm," described NAR Board of Trustees member Ted Cochran. "It's a very challenging event to fly!"

Al Gloer, president of CATO (NAR Section 581), said, "Alyssa Stenberg made the contest rocketry community sit up and take notice. Please join me in congratulating Alyssa for this extraordinary accomplishment."  Aerotech Consumer Aerospace loved the competitive nature of the story so much, they agreed to sponsor Alyssa's Red Glare record attempts.

Alyssa now has rockets built and ready to go for another eight events as soon as the opportunity presents itself, and has set her sights set on NARAM 50 and the possibility of trying out for the US team to go to the 2010 World Championships in Slovenia. In all, Alyssa hold seven national records that are confirmed and one pending certification.

Records set to date: 7 confirmed, 1 pending:

01-20-2008 07:32 PM  #1
Steve_Shannon When in doubt, ask Keenan   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 1988	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart Great story. Congratulations!

01-20-2008 08:32 PM  #2
H_rocket Certified Level Three   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 499	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart That's our girl!

01-20-2008 09:03 PM  #3
Chuck_Rudy Banned   Joined: Aug 2007 Posts: 223	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart I taped several of those shots. Great kid, glad to hear she's done very well. Durations shots sure do burn up a lot of tape. Chuck

01-21-2008 08:31 AM  #4
MikeyR New Member   Joined: Oct 2006 Posts: 4	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart Great job on the records and much congratulations, but how many of the higher power records were the first time they were flown by an A-divisioner?

01-23-2008 12:49 PM  #5
Just Jerry Freeform rockets advocate   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 1115	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart Gurl \Gurl\, n. A young person of either sex. [Obs.> See Girl. --Chaucer. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

01-23-2008 04:01 PM  #6
rocketman28 rocken rocketman   Joined: Jan 2008 Posts: 22	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart great job and good luck in the future

01-24-2008 10:06 AM  #7
R2K Certified Level Three   Joined: Jul 2007 Posts: 212	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart Wow CATO rocketry is famous!

01-28-2008 12:47 AM  #8
denver_fire_dude New Member   Joined: Dec 2007 Posts: 3	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart WOW! An 8 year old building an F and G helicopter all by herself is just incredible. She has more skill than I do!

01-28-2008 11:56 AM  #9
ddmobley Administrator   Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 3202	Re: "Gurl power" upsets traditional competition apple cart Quote: WOW! An 8 year old building an F and G helicopter all by herself is just incredible. She has more skill than I do! No kidding! I felt ashamed as I wrote the article!