McKinney High students blasting off to NASA rocket competition

[Buster's Uncle]

McKinney High students blasting off to NASA rocket competition
Dallas Morning News
Written by Nanette Light, Staff Writer 



McKinney High School Flying Lions Rocketry Team's rocket launches into the air in Gunter on Saturday. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)



In a farm pasture near Gunter, about an hour north of Dallas, a group of McKinney High School students blasts a NASA rocket just before dusk with the push of a red button. With a roar, it climbs nearly 3,000 feet toward the sky in a fiery blaze, leaving a trail of smoke and the smell of gunpowder in its path.

The crowd holds its breath. The rocket has never soared that high before.

"We did it," says junior Alex Macias, a member of the school's Flying Lions Rocketry Team. "You never know if it's going to work or not."

Jubilant cries, hugs, high-fives and shouts of "oh, my God" and "huzzah" come from students, parents and mentors on the grassy field below as they watch the rocket's flight, craning their necks and tilting their cellphones upward until the it was only a speck.

This isn't some toy built from a kit. At roughly 10 feet tall and 50 pounds, the rocket can speed its way into the sky at 370 mph — high enough to need clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch.

On the ground, the robotic voice of a computer program marks the spacecraft's altitudes as it flies up and parachutes down.

"You want to hear it say, 'landed' and not 'crashed,'" senior Alex Lehocky says, only half-jokingly.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvyMujbhyXc" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvyMujbhyXc</a>

The team will fly its spacecraft in next month's NASA Student Launch competition, where it will face 17 other teams from middle and high schools across the country.

McKinney is the only North Texas school and one of only three in the state to qualify for the competition. The students are taking the rocket to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., on April 5 to test it before NASA engineers.

Students from the University of North Texas are among 42 university teams competing in the college division.

To qualify for the NASA competition, the McKinney team — the first from the district to attend the NASA launch — had to finish in the top 25 at the Team America Rocketry Challenge in Washington, D.C.

"It is not an easy road to get to that point. It's not open for just any team to apply to be in it," said Fred Kepner, education specialist for NASA and logistical coordinator for its student launch program.

After the rocketry challenge, students submitted a 100-page proposal for the NASA competition — an eight-month unfunded contract to design, build, test and launch a reusable high-powered rocket and fragile payload such as an egg one mile into the sky and return it safely down. The students also built a drone and are launching it as a second payload with the rocket. Kepner said NASA does not accept every team that applies. 

The students are held to a similar standard and workflow as NASA engineers. They regularly video-conference with NASA professionals to discuss and get feedback on their rocket design and send reports for approval as the project progresses.

"I tease them and say, 'The only difference between them and the real engineers is the real engineers are getting paid," said Stephen Lehocky, a mechanical engineer and parent mentor for the team who grew up building and flying rockets in his backyard with his younger brother.



Kyle Myscich, 16, and Alex Lehocky, 18, of the McKinney High School Flying Lions Rocketry Team transport the rocket to the launch site in a field in Gunter on Saturday. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)   Staff Photographer


Jack Sprague, president of the Dallas Area Rocket Society, said the number of student rocket teams has grown as schools pour millions of dollars into science, technology, engineering, and math education — an initiative educators say will prepare students for jobs as creators and innovators in a growing technological field.

This year, more than 800 teams are expected to compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

"We're trying to get the next generation interested in science and technology," said Sprague, a mentor for the McKinney team and sponsor of their practice launches in Gunter. "Fire and smoke is a pretty good motivator."



Shuva Gautam, 18, Eric Beights, 18, and others record the rocket as it soars in the air in Gunter on Saturday. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)   Staff Photographer


NASA does not contribute funds to build the rocket, which is estimated to cost roughly $6,000, so money is raised through the school's booster club. Engineers from Raytheon and Emerson Electric have helped the students with the design and construction to make their rocket fly.

Stephen Lehocky guided the formation of the rocket team last year as a way to teach his daughter and nephew — both seniors on the team — and other students what engineers do. He said it's more than building weapons and robots, adding that it's emotional every time the NASA rocket they built is launched.

"I grew up in the 1960s, when we were going to the moon," Lehocky said in an email. "It is not just a rocket going up. It is a vision of what engineers can do."



From left: Project manager Kathryn Lehocky, 18, chief of safety Alex Macias, 16, payload B (or drone) engineer Alex Lehocky, 18, and media and mechanical safety ground equipment manager Mitchell Palmer, 16, assemble the McKinney High School Flying Lions Rocketry Club's nearly 10-foot long rocket at McKinney High School. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News) Staff Photographer


With the prevalence of cellphones and satellite television, Kepner said, a career at NASA or in space is more realistic for students than it was decades earlier.

"I get this kind of wicked sense of power," Alex Macias said of seeing the rocket launch. "It's your rocket, and it's going way up. ... I just kind of feel proud."


http://www.dallasnews.com/news/mckinney/2017/03/24/mckinney-high-students-blasting-nasa-rocket-competition