New Zealand Science Teacher

Up, up and away

31/03/2014

Challenge your students with a rocket-building project.

Can your students work as a team to make an egg-carrying rocket? Enter the New Zealand Rocketry Challenge 2014 and find out.

Registrations are now open for the New Zealand Rocketry Challenge, which offers Year 7 and 8 students the opportunity to design a flying aerospace vehicle that meets a specified set of mission and performance requirements. 

The mission, should you choose to accept it: design and build a stable model rocket and use it to safely lift a fragile payload (one raw hen's egg) to an altitude of exactly 150 metres, then to return the payload in undamaged condition.

This year’s event has been modified to make it easier for student teams all around the country to take part. You can fly in your own school, at a time that suits – but still compete against other teams in a national leaderboard, and optionally coordinate local school fly-offs.

Rocket kits and other resources are available, or you can build your own from scratch – and digital altimeters can be cheaply rented for your competition flights.

The New Zealand Rocketry Challenge is a great way for students to apply their maths, physics, teamwork in a creative, innovative manner.

For more information and contest rules visit: www.rocketcontest.org.nz. 

Register by 17 April; launch and submit results by 19 May.