Grade 6 students aim high with ‘rocket launch’ contest

While their rockets might be tennis balls or pipes — and the launches might be elastic — the friendly competition is bringing Grade 6 students in Regina to new creative heights.

The city-wide Launch a Rocket competition has been running for a few years through a partnership between both school divisions and the University of Regina Faculty of Engineering.

Ruby Roberts from McLurg School was so excited about the contest she started building her launch about a month ago using a wood frame, elastic tubing, a kneepad and a dog toy attached to a mini parachute.

Grade 6 student Ruby Roberts aims high at the "Launch a Rocket" Competition at the University of Regina. pic.twitter.com/1P5xvuRVGu

— Adriana Christianson (@AdrianaC_JME) November 15, 2017

“It’s a really cool project to do and I think it would be fun, and winning would be awesome,” Roberts said, adding she really enjoys building things.

“What I think is neat about it is that kids get to show their creativity through architecture.”

Partners Xander Whitefield and Gabriel Jacob launched a rocket built from a pipe with an old bowflex that dinged the roof of the big gymnasium at the U of R.

Grade 6 students are soaring to new creative heights in a rocket launch contest at the University of Regina. pic.twitter.com/Sg99INjWMQ

— Adriana Christianson (@AdrianaC_JME) November 15, 2017

“I built probably six rockets, none of them worked as good as this one,” Whitefield explained.

The contest appealed to his love of building things and he thought flying rockets sounded cool.

Their creation did, however, run into a minor problem with the parachute — it bounced off the ceiling and came falling back down too fast.

“I had this idea because the roof in our school isn’t as high as this one, so I hit the roof at our school and the parachute would push out the bottom and hopefully it would create enough drag to float softly to the ground,” he said.

Whitefield said he learned about the force and the need for a bigger round parachute to create more drag.

When asked if he plans to keep building things in the future, he said definitely.