A failed parachute deployment kept the Cloudbusters Model Rocket Club out of the final launch in the American Rocketry Competition on May 20.
The team of five Animas High School students and one Durango High School student competed in the national competition in The Plains, Virginia, for a chance to win scholarship prize money.
The competition is broken down into two launches. The first is a qualifying launch to see which team will qualify for the finals. The team was confident heading into its first launch, and it initially looked like it was going to be enough to get the team into the top 42 for the second flight.
Teams must build a rocket that safely carries one large hen egg to an altitude of 850 feet, stays airborne for 42 to 45 seconds, and returns the egg safely to the ground.
Cloudbusters President Scot Davis said the rocket launched at 877 feet and stayed airborne for 46 to 48 seconds, which would have scored the team a 10-point flight. The goal is to have the lowest point total to qualify for the second launch.
Initially, a judge said the launch was acceptable, but after further discussion, judges told the team they were disqualified because the parachute on the bottom section of the rocket didn’t fully deploy and was considered a safety issue.
“It would’ve been a 10-point fight, which would have put them into the top 10,” Davis said.
Students disputed the ruling, arguing that judges initially ruled the flight was allowable and that the egg inside the rocket did not break.
But the judges would not budge, and the decision to disqualify the team stood. As a battalion chief for the Los Pinos Fire Protection District, Davis understood why the failed deployment was a safety issue and agreed with the judges’ verdict.
“Recovery issues with model rocketry are 75% of all failures, and it didn’t open up,” he said. “That’s just the way it goes.”
He said the malfunction was a learning opportunity for the students in multiple ways. The students had to advocate for themselves when they were disputing the disqualification ruling, which Davis said was positive.
Davis also said students had a debate over how long to make the parachute cord before the first launch. He said if the cord would have been longer, the parachute might have had a better chance of deploying.
But the students chose to stick with the design they had because it had been successful in previous launches and did not want to alter the rocket.
“One of the other reflections as a group that we processed was if you see something ,and it's important enough for you to notice it, not only say something but take action,” Davis said.
The disqualification will motivate the team to pay closer attention to detail next year.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
