“Working virtually, we learned the most this year out of all our past years competing. We developed a system to ensure each team member—even those staying with family in Thailand—could contribute equally to everything from coding to 3D modeling."
-Kara Gaiser, National Champion Co-Captain, Oregon Episcopal School
OVERVIEW
The 2021 American Rocketry Challenge was the first of its kind in the contest’s 19-year history. A hybrid contest, the 2021 event mixed the best in-person elements of last year’s contest with novel virtual opportunities. This year's highlights included:
- A distributed National Finals
- Educational webinars
- A virtual awards ceremony featuring a senior leader from the U.S. Space Force
- Two new awards and a photo contest
- 45% finalists of color and 35% female finalists
- A Title I-funded school achieving National Finalist status
- 450,000 impressions and 11,000 engagements across @RocketContest social media accounts
- Dozens of legislator engagement on social media
- Appearances in 80 print and online stories, as well as over 20 television and radio appearances
DISTRIBUTED NATIONAL FINALS
After the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of the 2020 competition, 100 teams from 27 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands competed for $100,000 in prizes at the 2021 National Finals. Distributed across the country between June 11th and 20th, the ten launch sites were located in or near:
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Lucerne Valley, California
- Pueblo, Colorado
- Palm Beach, Florida
- Syracuse, New York
- Dayton, Ohio
- Rockdale, Texas
- The Plains, Virginia
- Pasco, Washington
- Brighton, Wisconsin
WEBINARS
Our Ask an Engineer webinar series gave students the chance to hear from professionals in the aerospace and defense industry. Whether they wanted to learn more about thermal dynamics or what it's like to work with organizations like NASA and the Department of Defense, students with all types of interests gained valuable insight into how their rocket contest skills could translate into future careers in the industry.
NEW AWARDS FOR 2021
Keeping in mind that differing weather conditions across launch sites could have led to disparities in rocket launch outcomes, we created the Best in Launch Site award to honor the top team in each site.
Navigating a rocket contest through pandemic-era restrictions is already difficult for seasoned competitors, let alone for first-time participants. To honor our new competitors’ resilience and unwavering commitment to STEM, we created the Best First Time Finalist award.
VIRTUAL AWARDS CEREMONY
This year's award ceremony featured opening remarks by Lieutenant General Nina Armagno, Director of Staff of the U.S. Space Force. Lt. Gen. Armagno relayed her personal rocket launch experiences and the wisdom she accrued from her impressive professional career, making the ceremony especially meaningful for students.
PHOTO CONTEST
The dispersed nature of this year’s National Finals meant that we couldn’t capture and share the Final Fly-Off in all 10 launch sites. To inspire students to share their experience on social media, we created a Photo Contest. The contest incentivized students to snap their own pictures for the chance to win cash prizes in four categories:
PRESENTATION COMPETITION
Back for a second year, the virtual Presentation Competition asked students to show off their hard work by explaining their rocket design and demonstrating how test flight data drove decision making.
This year, the winners hailed from Northville High School in Northville, MI. The team explained their rocket’s engineering and design process in such detail that the National Association of Rocketry is using the team's launch data to address manufacturing inconsistencies.
MARKETING COMPETITION
The second annual Marketing Competition turned students into unofficial American Rocketry Challenge ambassadors by asking them to create videos centered around the contest. The videos—judged by Aerojet Rocketdyne, BAE Systems, and Accenture—gave students the chance to show off their team and help their communities get excited about rocketry, STEM, and aerospace.
This year's winners were Marquette High School from Chesterfield, MO. Watch their winning video:
Showcasing SPONSORS
With the support of our generous sponsors, the American Rocketry Challenge was able to provide students with an enriching hybrid contest. We worked to highlight our sponsors' branding throughout the whole contest experience.
WEEKLY EMAILS
For the months leading up to qualification flights and the National Finals, weekly rocket contest emails were sent to all 3,461 students registered for the competition. These emails displayed the logos of our Diamond, Platinum, and Gold sponsors, increasing sponsors' visibility within the community of next-generation STEM leaders.
NATIONAL FINALS SITE FLAGS
With the unique, distributed Final Fly-Offs, our Diamond, Platinum, and Gold sponsors had the opportunity to sponsor one of the ten launch sites. Brand flags were staked throughout launch sites and stood proudly in the background of many photos, increasing brand awareness for students on site and for other community members via social media posts.
TITLE I GRANT PROGRAM
The American Rocketry Challenge offers grants to Title I schools to provide resources and initial funding to launch a rocketry program. Since the start of the program in 2020, we have distributed $120,000 to schools throughout the country.
This year, we granted Title I funding to 11 schools. 2021 also marked the first year that a Title I Grant-funded team qualified for National Finals, an impressive feat for first-time rocketeers.
social media overview
We had 450,000 impressions and 11,000 engagements on posts across all our social media accounts, plus hundreds of thousands of impressions and engagements on rocket contest content posted by student, congressional, and media accounts.
Our Instagram was used to convey important information to our student community in an engaging way.
Our Twitter was used to highlight different student teams and their contest experiences.
FEDERAL engagement
The rocket contest partnered with AIA's Legislative Affairs team to reach out to congressional members who represented districts that included a National Finalist team. From Alabama to Washington, dozens of legislators posted about the American Rocketry Challenge, garnering local and national attention for the contest and its participants.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"'I was following in my sister’s footsteps. She had told me about the rocketry program and I never took her word up for it until I got into the program and started to see how things actually were and she was right. I eventually fell in love with not only rocketry but the people there, and it’s been an amazing experience and I have no regrets,' says Yahir Brito." — CBS 7 Odessa (Odessa, Texas).
"In a world where only 13% of engineers are women, students like Rebecca are making strides and breaking barriers. She will attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Rockford this fall to pursue her dream of becoming an aerospace engineer. She says the cash prize from the contest will help the Rocketeers update supplies, and help with her college tuition."— Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois).
"'In 20 years of teaching science and STEM classes, my experiences with student rocketry are the highlights,' Williams told GeekWire. 'The TARC challenge, which varies every year, is conceptually easy but challenging to consistently execute...The rapid pace of iteration makes improvements tangible and exciting for the students,' Williams said." — GeekWire (Seattle, Washington).
looking forward: the KERBAL ROCKETRY CHALLENGE
To give students the opportunity to continue in their STEM pursuits after the 2021 American Rocketry Challenge, we brought back the Kerbal Rocketry Challenge utilizing the hit astrophysics video game, Kerbal Space Program. This year's video game challenge asks students to build a self-sustaining base on the Moon that can safely house astronauts and includes a functional In-Situ Resource Utilization module. The stakes are high with over $4,500 being offered in prizes, but we have been primed to expect nothing but the best from our young rocketeers.
CONCLUSION
Designing, building, and launching a rocket as a teenager is difficult. Designing, building, and launching a rocket as a teenager living in the midst of a pandemic is even tougher. Despite the difficult circumstances they faced, our 2021 competitors persevered, teaching us that with teamwork, innovation, and the drive to succeed, there is no height we can't reach.