The 32nd annual Rockville Science Day April 23 featured rocket launches, telescope viewing, robotics, ship modeling, outdoor learning and lots of science in action.
The event was held at Montgomery College in Rockville and also featured talks on the Klingon language, consciousness and radiation.
NARHAMS model rocket club members from the Washington, D.C. area worked on the launches. They were assisted by participants from Explorer Post 1010, which meets at the Rockville Science Center.
Ten middle and high school students in the Explorer post make up the group’s two rocketry teams. There also are drone and robotics teams.
“They are all nationally ranked teams,” said Bob Ekman, advisor to Explorer Post 1010.
One of the rocketry teams just qualified for the finals of the American Rocketry Challenge on May 20 at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia. Only the top 100 teams out of the 800 that competed nationally will shoot off their rockets in the finals.
“It’s a big deal,” Ekman said.
The team that sends its medium-size rocket the closest to an altitude of 850-feet and is in the air for 42 seconds, using a parachute to land, will take home the grand prize, which includes an all-expense paid trip to compete in the International Rocketry Challenge at the Paris Air Show in June.
Ekman said the Rockville teams do well because they start working in September and continue weekly, right up to competition days.
Five members of the rocketry team also are headed to Wisconsin, where they will send up their six-foot tall rocket. It will splash down into Lake Michigan for a water recovery.
🧬 Today is the 32nd Annual Rockville Science Day! Be sure to join Rockville Science Center today at Montgomery College for the Rockville Science Day event from Noon to 5 p.m.! pic.twitter.com/VPcJ8oE6K5
— City of Rockville (@Rockville411) April 23, 2023
