Two teams from Richards School will once again travel to the national finals at the American Rocketry Challenge in Washington, D.C., giving their best shot at a win that would send them to an international competition in England.
It is the seventh time the school will compete, going each year since the teams were established in 2017 and having won sixth place in the national competition in 2018 and 2023, and 13th in the nation and the Saturn V rocket lookalike competition in 2019.
The competition will take place Saturday at The Plains in Virginia, in an open-spaces facility located just outside D.C. chosen for the safe launch of the rockets.
The teams from Richards are among 100 finalists chosen from an all-time high of 922 competing teams comprised of more than 5,000 middle and high school students from 45 states, and are two of the six teams representing Missouri.
To qualify, each team was required to design, build and launch model rockets that safely carried a raw egg to an altitude of 820 feet, stayed airborne for between 43 and 46 seconds, and returned to the ground safely, keeping the egg intact.
The national champion team will win an all-expense paid trip to the International Rocketry Challenge in July at the Farnborough Air Show in England. Additionally, teams will be competing for $100,000 in prizes, and the top 25 teams will automatically receive invitations to NASA’s Student Launch Challenge.
The Richards teams are coached by middle school Project Lead The Way and science teacher Cody Lovan and Richards School Board Secretary Dr. Brian Morrison. Members of the Richards middle school team, the Challengers, are Gracie Dunn, Julian Earls, Carter Collins, Lena Finke, Jackson Crosser and Lacey Collins. The high school team, the Rockets, is made up of Alec Morrison, Rhys Kerley, Riley Lilly, Gabriel Burgess and Nash Crawford.
School officials said the goals of Richards’ rocketry program are to inspire and challenge students to think more critically and systematically, and it provides a pathway for students to explore S.T.E.M.-related careers.
The American Rocketry Challenge (TARC), in its 22nd year, is sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, the National Association of Rocketry and more than 20 industry partners including NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and L3Harris. It is considered the aerospace and defense industry’s flagship program, designed to encourage students to pursue study and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Some Richards students who have participated in the competition have gone on to enroll in S.T.E.M. programs in high school and received related scholarships to help pay for college.
According to information provided by competition officials, TARC has inspired about 95,000 middle and high school students to explore education and careers in S.T.E.M. fields.
