For the fourth year in a row East Fairmont Middle School rocketry teams head to national championship

Apr. 23—FAIRMONT — If there's one thing we can say about East Fairmont Middle School's rocketry teams, it's that they're persistent.

Despite complications and struggles among the students over the last two years dealing with COVID-19, and the strain the virus put on EFMS' six rocketry teams, students prevailed. This year makes for the fourth season in a row the school will send a team to the national rocketry championship.

Barbara Pill, EMFS STEM teacher and coach of the rocketry program, said it's been a tough season, but the students pushed through.

"We've had illnesses, quarantines, bad weather, high winds that really push us," Pill said. "Qualifying [for nationals] is over a six-month period. Because of those factors, we were pushed to the last weekend of qualifying before we could even launch a rocket."

The process to get a rocket ready for launch is tough and there are specific parameters that are laid out by the American Rocketry Challenge officials.

The rules and specifications for the rockets change every year. A team scores points based on time of a flight's, height and safety of the rocket's cargo. The cargo is usually eggs, which have to launch and land without a crack.

This year the rules required the rockets be made out of two thick cardboard tubes of different diameters totaling in no more than 650 millimeters and not exceeding 650 grams, including the two eggs and rocket fuel.

Meeting these parameters are some of the hardest challenges the students face. Heading to nationals this year are technically three of EFMS's teams. The team sizes at nationals are limited to 6 students, so two of the school's smaller teams of three combined, allowing the school to have two competition-ready teams out of 100 finalists in the country.

"Making sure everything fits together was tough. We had to use a lot of sandpaper and special care," said Savannah Corder, a member of the one of the three teams. "We had to make sure it fits together but doesn't fall apart when you pick it up or launch it."

LJ Diaz, another seventh grader, said that working to get a rocket's weight exact and fine-tuning were some of the most challenging parts for his group. The weight of the rocket is stringently judged at the competitions and even sanding down the edge of a fin to shed a few grams makes a big difference.

"We had some trouble with weight and how heavy our [rocket] is," LJ said. "It has to be light enough to make it into competition. To get it there, we might have to use a lighter material or sand off extra epoxy or even a lighter paint."

But some groups don't have too many issues with the competition specifications. Some groups have trouble with the looks of the rocket and agreeing to an aesthetic design that all the members like. Maddox Swisher, an eighth grader, and his team had trouble agreeing on their design.

"My group didn't really have too much trouble putting [our rocket] together I don't believe, but we did have some design conflicts," Maddox said. "Each of us wanted a favorite character from something we liked on the rocket, but then we had a lot of empty space to fill, and the design ended up being the most time-consuming part for us."

In competitions involving science, technology, engineering and mathematics, students learn to code, use various math concepts, work with their hands and think critically, but the oft-overlooked social aspect of the competitions are usually the pieces that stick with the students the most.

Pill tries to make sure that teamwork is a major part of the activity, and the students learn to get along before any rockets leave the ground.

"They have to work as a team and if you have six students on a team, it's hard to agree on things like what the rocket should look like," Pill said. "They have to learn to compromise and respect each other's thoughts and processes even if they don't agree."

Students are actually scored on their decorum and how well they work as a team.

But now that qualifying is out of the way, and the teams have their tickets to nationals, they have to start over and rebuild their rockets and test them in time for the May competition.

All three of the students agreed that they're excited about competing and are ready to get to work this week on their new rockets. The competition is scheduled for May 14 in The Plains, Virginia and the Top 25 teams will be invited to a NASA rocket launch workshop. The first place team will receive a ticket to the world rocketry competition in London.

"When the students are in STEM, I want them to have fun and I want them to take away the experiences," Pill said. "If they don't enjoy it, it's no fun for them and they lose interest, so that is the most important thing to me."

Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.