DEVENS, Massachussetts USA — Eight students from the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School qualified to compete in the recent finals of the prestigious Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world's largest model-rocket contest, held in The Plains, Va.

More than 7,000 students in 678 teams attempted to meet the contest's rigorous requirements, but only the top scoring 100 teams qualified to compete in the national contest.

Student TARC team members included: Michael Cicchetti, Dylan Knight and Ben Pugh of Pepperell; Kenneth Brook and David Ialeggio of Shirley; Michael White of Ayer; Craig Rossi of Sterling; and Ryan Lekstrom of West Boylston.

The contest requires that students design, build and test a model rocket that can fly for as close as possible to 45 seconds total flight duration and 800-foot peak altitude with a payload of one raw egg, and successfully parachute the egg back to the ground unbroken.

The contest promotes teamwork, delegation of tasks and group decision-making.

Steve Byan, a Parker Model Rocket Club TARC team parent mentor, said the team experienced a number of trials along the way to completing its qualification flights, including having one rocket destroyed by landing in a river and another (including its altimeter) apparently lost to a group of neighborhood hooligans.

They braved snowstorms, cold winds, rain and the eternal quest for a launch site to complete their test flights, often only to find disappointment when the altimeter failed to return a reading.

Diane Kruse, a Parker School teacher, said she found the students' performance amazing, especially since this is the first year that Parker has had a TARC team. The students were only able to get good data from three of their seven flight tests, but they managed to converge to within a foot of their target altitude.