Students' rocket skills put to test at math-science event

With that, high school students from around the state huddled around tables in a sunny courtyard at the University of Arizona and set out to build a rocket.

There's more. The rocket, launched by compressed air, had to haul eggs that weren't supposed to crack during the short flight.

And before the event, the students had no idea what the project would entail. It's "on-site" engineering.

Sujan Mahato, an 18-year-old senior at Tucson High School, said his four-person team decided on a design with cones on top and on the side.

"Ours was heavy," he said after watching it fly. "We didn't think about that."

A lighter rocket, he said, would've gone farther.

The rockets were judged on distance and how many eggs they carried safely, he said.

Students from nearly 40 schools across the state gathered at the UA Saturday to participate in Arizona Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) Day. The students use math, science and engineering skills while participating in an array of competitions.

MESA strives to get minority and low-income students in middle and high school interested in technology fields and on course for college, said Lori Tochihara, director of MESA's early outreach office.

In one challenge, students must use wind power — simulated by a fan — to move a toy car attached to a string across the ground.

Ava Bemer, a MESA adviser and science teacher at Billy Lane Lauffer Middle School, said the children from her school who participated had some problems with their device, and had to tweak the design in the weeks before the competition.

"At the middle school level, it's not about winning at all; it's more about planting the seed of how far science can take you," Bemer said.

At another competition, students in blue shirts donned yellow construction hats and prepared a trebuchet — a medieval siege weapon used to hurl stones and other objects. Sitting and watching another team prepare its device, Joshua Seitz, a junior at Peoria High School, said the trebuchets — usually only a couple feet tall — are judged on their ability to hurl accurately, on distance and on sheer strength.

Seitz said he wants to study civil engineering in Arizona or Colorado. MESA has helped him learn about the engineering process, he said.

It took careful planning and experimentation to prepare his team's trebuchet for Saturday's competition, Seitz said.

"To find out the right angle (for the trebuchet) we needed to use, it was just trial-and-error," Seitz said.

And about the eggs in that rocket, Mahato — who plans on studying electrical engineering at the UA — and his teammates watched as a judge sliced into his rocket with a small blade. They were eager to see if any of the three eggs had cracked.

They survived the trip intact.

The Winners

Here are the winners from the Arizona Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) Day.

Two Tucson schools, Tucson Magnet High School and Amphitheater Middle School, will represent Arizona in the national competition for the trebuchet event in June in Denver.

High School Overall Competition

• First — Peoria High School

• Second — Catalina Magnet High School

• Third — Tucson Magnet High School

Middle School Overall Competition

• First — Peoria Junior High

• Second — Amphitheater Middle School

• Third — Desert Shadows Middle School

List of winning schools provided by the Arizona Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement program.