The Maharishi School rocketry team placed 17th in the nation during a competition on May 20 in Virginia, which means they have been invited to participate in an even bigger rocketry challenge through NASA next school year. Members of the team are, from left, Kai Zhao, adviser Rick Rudloff, Ruimin Luo, Evelyn Ding (front), Han Wang and Keshav Sinolia. Rudloff is holding the large rocket that his team designed for the NASA launch in 2018, while Ding and Sinolia are holding the rockets that they launched in the American Rocketry Challenge in May. (Andy Hallman/The Union)

FAIRFIELD — The Maharishi School rocketry team has done it again, being recognized as one of the top rocketry programs in the country and qualifying for the NASA Student Launch program next school year.

The team, which consists of six members of the upper school and their adviser, Rick Rudloff, participated in the American Rocketry Challenge, which held its final competition on May 20 in a small town in Virginia called The Plains. Maharishi School’s team finished 17 in the nation, in a field of more than 800 teams. For finishing in the Top 25, Maharishi School’s rocketry team has earned the right to participate in the prestigious NASA Student Launch program.

For the NASA Student Launch, teams are asked to submit a proposal to build a high-powered rocket with a peak altitude of between 4,000-6,000 feet, which is much higher than the altitude of rockets in the American Rocketry Challenge, which is between 775-900 feet. The rockets for the ARC contest can weigh no more than 1.4 pounds, but the rockets in the NASA challenge weigh many times more, between 10-25 pounds.

Since the NASA Student Launch requires a bigger and more sophisticated rocket that flies a mile above ground, it requires a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration, a high-powered rocket mentor to supervise and NASA oversight. Rudloff said that, in the ARC contest, the students place a raw egg in the rocket, and are supposed to return it to earth uncracked. For the NASA program, their rocket will instead carry a science experiment or an engineering payload.

In addition to building a new and bigger rocket for the NASA competition, Maharishi School’s rocketry team is also tasked with writing a detailed proposal about its rocket and payload by August. Rudloff said teams will be scored on a rubric that devotes a large section to safety, where the students will need to explain how they will keep themselves and any observers safe during construction and launch of the rocket.

“The heavy rocket vehicle will typically be traveling at speeds in excess of 400 mph, so attention to safety throughout this project is a No. 1 priority,” Rudloff said.

If the Maharishi School team is able to jump through these hoops, its project will go through more design reviews with NASA engineers, and eventually the team could be able to launch their rocket with other middle/high school teams and collegiate teams in Huntsville, Alabama, in April 2024. Maharishi School last sent a team to the NASA launch in Alabama in 2018.

Maharishi School’s rocketry team consists of Johnathan Rodriguez, Evelyn Ding, Keshav Sinolia, Ruimin Luo, Kai Zhao and Han Wang. Each one plays a different role on the team, including design, construction and data collection.

Rodriguez, the only freshman on the team, specializes in preparing the rocket’s parachute and photography of the launch. He said he films the test launches so the team can review them and see what went right and what went wrong.

Ding, a senior, works on design and construction. She’s in her third year on the team, and said she enjoys sharing her ideas with the part of the team responsible for the 3-D printed parts.

Sinolia and Luo, both sophomores, are in charge of marketing, which involves producing videos about the team and its launches, including attaching a camera to the rocket itself. They plan to publish their finished video, which will last about two minutes, on social media to generate excitement about the rocketry program at Maharishi School. Rudloff said he hopes the video will encourage prospective students to enroll at Maharishi School.

Luo added that he and Sinolia, in addition to tackling marketing, also helped with sanding the 3-D printed parts of the rocket such as its nose cone and lower body. Luo said his main job on the team is to script the interviews that he and Sinolia record for the promotional video.

Luo said that being a member of the rocketry team is time-consuming but well worth it.

“We’re learning crafting skills and getting to express our creativity,” he said. “It also helps with our engineering and math skills.”

Zhao, a senior, is in charge of designing all the 3-D printed parts on the rocket such as the nose cone, boat-tail and fins. He said the other team members give him ideas for concepts, and he knows how to program the 3-D printer to turn those ideas into physical objects.

Three years ago, Zhao was asked to design a 3-D part, which forced him to learn how to use the program. Since then, he’s been the leading 3-D parts designer for the past two years.

“I like being on the rocketry team because of the atmosphere, and that people are nice to each other on the team,” Zhao said.

Wang, a sophomore, said this was his first year on the team, and that he started the school year as a member of a separate rocketry team at the school before the teams combined. One of Wang’s tasks was to build the rocket. He said it’s fun to be part of a club that uses cutting-edge technology like 3-D printing.

“Every part is interesting, and we have so much new technology to play with,” Wang said.