WESTLAKE VILLAGE, California USA — An Oaks Christian School team has qualified for the first time to compete in this weekend's finals of the world's largest rocket contest, the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

The team of students from the Westlake Village private school is one of hundreds participating in the competition sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of Rocketry. It will be held Saturday in The Plains, Va.

Seven of the eight students who devised and made the Oaks Christian rocket will travel to Virginia along with Roger Hall, a physics teacher and team supervisor.

Oaks Christian School students prepare for the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

"A rocket's harder to build than you think," said Trace Biskin, 18, of Agoura Hills, the only team member not traveling to Virginia. "You have to learn how everything works, from the parts to the engine."

The team spent three months developing a rocket about 3 feet in length that has to travel 750 feet into the air carrying a raw egg in its nose cone, then parachute the egg safely back to earth within 45 seconds of launch.

"The rocket is made out of wood, and the fins are made out of plastic," said Joshua Dane, a 17-year-old from Simi Valley. "It has to weigh less than 4 pounds."

Team captain Bobby Nordlund, 18, of Westlake Village, said, "After the initial launch, the challenge was trying to find a way to get a rocket up to the right altitude."

The team launched its rocket from the Lucerne Dry Lake east of Victorville to qualify for the nationals, hitting the target altitude of 750 feet and returning the rocket to the ground in 45.07 seconds.

"We can't launch this size engine in the area because of the fire code and stuff, so we had to drive all the way out into the middle of nowhere to find a launch site," said team member Jacob Jepsen, 18, of Newbury Park.

Having successfully created the prototype, the students were busy making a second back-up rocket to take with them to the finals, where they will only get one shot at the title.

Jepson said he's learned a lot about aerodynamics as a result of the challenge. "The nose cone was scratched up a little bit and we thought we could just paint over it, but that wasn't good enough, so we had to sand all the paint off and redo it," he said.

Hall, a physics teacher at Oaks Christian since the school opened eight years ago, said the idea of a rocketry elective came from Principal David Cooper.

"I developed the course and it's still a work in progress, but it's turned out to be a success," said Hall.

"If you want to do science, you want to apply it, and this is applied physics," he said. "You actually do something with what you're learning, so it's fun."

At the championships, the top 10 teams will share a $60,000 scholarship fund, and one team will be chosen to travel to England for the famous Farnborough Air Show just outside London in July.

The trip to Virginia is costing about $8,000. Team members have written letters to local businesses appealing for sponsorships, and they've raised much of the money.

"We've got great support from our families and our sponsors," Nordlund said. "We're going to have decals on the rocket and team banners and shirts with our sponsors' logos, so we're going to look great."

Copyright © 2008, Ventura County Star.