April 27, 2017 – West Bend, WI Seven UW-Washington County students launched their “Saturn V” rocket in the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium’s Collegiate Rocket Competition.
The annual competition took place at Richard Bong Recreational Park in Kansasville, WI and is an opportunity for college students to demonstrate their engineering and design skills through direct application. Each team must conceive, design, fabricate and compete with high-powered rockets. This year’s specific challenge was to generate electricity on ascent of launch.
Prior to launch, the rockets were inspected for flight safety at the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh. Students also completed an oral presentation at Carthage College.
The competition involved 13 teams from mainly 4-year campuses, including UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Green Bay, UW-Platteville, UW-Stevens Point, Carthage, Concordia, Marquette, MSOE, Ripon, along with UW-Fox Valley and UW-Sheboygan.
Scores are based on design report, flight readiness presentation and quality of fabrication, competition flight, performance post-flight performance evaluation report, project management, and educational outreach.
Results will be announced in a few weeks. The three top teams will present their results at the 27th annual Wisconsin Space Conference at UW-LaCrosse in August.
UW-WC students involved in the competition include members of the Physics Club and the Engineering Club. The seven student rocket team members include: Donald Christianson, Joe Gawrys, Casey Krakowski, Max Read, Vanessa Sawatzke, Arber Shehu, and Sophia Zappia. The rocket club’s advisor is Swapnil Tripathi, Associate Professor of Physics/Astronomy.
Two Photos attached:
UW-Washington County’s Rocket Club team with Astronaut John Harringon at the recent Rocket competition (L to R): Sophia Zappia, Casey Krakowski, Arber Shehu, Astronaut John Harrington, Donald Christianson, Joe Gawrys, Vanessa Sawatzke and Max Read
Competition – This photo provides results for all teams competing. Note: UW-Madison’s rocket crashed and Marquette’s team withdrew.
More info on the Rocket Club’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/UWWCRocketTeam/?ref=bookmarks