JUSTIN, Texas USA — For eight months, three Northwest High School girls lived, breathed and dreamed rockets.

Their dreams came true this weekend, when they were one of 100 teams competing for $60,000 in the national Team America Rocketry Challenge in The Plains, Va.

Courtney Sims, teacher Wayne Day, Katie Flachsbart and Lea' Graham display one of their rockets. The students earned a place in the national Team America Rocketry Challenge. Photo: D.J. Peters.

Results were unavailable at press time, but just getting to the finals was worth all the effort.

"I'm overjoyed and somewhat overwhelmed," junior Katie Flachsbart said before she and her teammates — senior Lea' Graham and junior Courtney Sims — their sponsor and a couple of parents flew to the competition.

Preparations

The team met weekly beginning in September to design, build and test a model rocket. Theirs carries a payload of two Grade A Large eggs in flight for 45 seconds to an altitude of 750 feet and returns them uncracked.

Flachsbart was on a rocketry challenge team in the seventh and eighth grades, but this is her first time competing at this level.

"Our design was simple and we had a few stumbling blocks, but we worked through them and finally perfected it," she said.

Qualifying

This is the first year that engineering teacher Wayne Day has been the sponsor, and it's the first time that Northwest has made the finals.

The rocket's balance proved difficult, and the wings kept falling off until the team got the weight distribution just right.

"I am proud of these girls," Day said. "They took a pretty good challenge and worked it through. They did not let adversity stop them."

Teams were selected based on the scores of flights watched by qualification observers.

Team mentors Jack and Suzy Sprague have been members of the Dallas Area Rocket Society since the early '80s.

They verified that the team's flights followed the rules and that the eggs didn't crack.

"Wayne and the school did a wonderful job supporting the kids," Jack Sprague said. "They did a remarkable job. The team stayed focused and worked through the challenges."

Day turned the compliment back to the girls.

"If I had any influence on them, I'm real happy; I couldn't ask for better students," he said.

The challenge

The rocket contest is an aerospace design and engineering event for students in seventh through 12th grades hosted by the National Association of Rocketry and the Aerospace Industries Association.

The goal of the competition is to encourage students to consider an aerospace career.

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