BELLEVUE, Wash. — Five Odle Middle School students took first place Friday at the International Rocketry Challenge in London. The team competed against students from Japan, France and the United Kingdom. This is the second year in a row that a team from the U.S. has won the international championship.
"Representing the entire country was really intimidating," Mikaela Ikeda, captain of the "Space Potatoes" rocketry team, told the <a href="http://www.aia-aerospace.org/">Aerospace Industries Association.</a> "Luckily, we had each other for support and everyone did their jobs perfectly!"
The "Space Potatoes" are comprised of Bellevue eighth-graders who are 12-14 years old. The members are Mikaela Ikeda, Stephanie Han, Srvatshan Sakthinarayanan, Karl Deerkop and Larry Jing.
The teams designed, built and launched rockets with a goal of reaching an altitude of exactly 850 feet within a 44- to 46-second flight window. This year's contest required rockets to carry two raw eggs, placed perpendicular to each other in the rocket's body, a task that complicated rocket design.
The International Rocketry Challenge is designed to engage middle school and high school students from around the world in aerospace, science, technology, engineering and math education.
Cox Media Group
