Cleared for Launch: ARC Team Reaches Nationals
Photos submitted by Patrick Wang.
Congratulations to Team Freaky Flyers for making it to nationals this year for the American Rocketry Challenge! Of the 100 teams that made it, Freaky Flyers will be the only team from Wisconsin!!
Wish them luck as they compete for their stake in over $100,000 worth of potential awards!
What is ARC?
The American Rocketry Challenge (often referred to as ARC), is the largest student model rocketry competition in the world. It takes place every year, with over 1,100 teams competing against each other to be in the top 100 teams that make it to nationals.
Who are the Freaky Flyers?
Aarush Agnihotri (left) and Nathan Tran (right) setting up for a launch.
The Freaky Flyers is made up of seven students from Hamilton High School: Arya Arun, Ivan Emerson, Brijesh Ganesh Kumar, Logan Gierahn, Nathan Tran, and with Aarush Agnihotri and Sam McLaughlin as their team’s leads. Their name was originally a bit of a joke, but by the time applications were due, they couldn’t come up with anything better, so the name stuck.
How do you win?
A past launch of Freaky Flyer’s rocket.
Each team must build a rocket that can safely carry an egg, reach a target altitude of 750 feet, and stay in the air for 36-39 seconds. If the egg breaks, the rocket breaks, or any sort of serious malfunction occurs, the flight is disqualified. For every foot a rocket misses the target altitude by, a point is added to the score. For every second the rocket’s flight duration is off by, 4 points are added. Just like golf, the fewer points a team scores, the better.
To qualify for nationals, students get an unlimited number of practice flights, but only three qualifying flights. Each qualifying flight must be supervised by an approved advisor (shoutout to Dan Wolf for volunteering his time to supervise ours). Then, the best two flights are added together and submitted online.
On their first qualifying flight for nationals, Freaky Flyers managed to score a relatively okay score of 21 points. On their second flight, they got an incredible score of just 1, putting them well within the top 100 with a total of just 22 points.
What will nationals look like?
President Patrick Wang pictured with Advisor Dan Wolf.
Nationals will be hosted at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia. Students from Freaky Flyers will be flying out on May 15th, and competing on the 16th, with awards being announced on the 17th.
At nationals, there will be two rounds of flying. In the first round, each team will get a single flight, and their score will be recorded the same way it was in qualifying flights. From there, only the top teams will advance to the second round, where a coin will be flipped to decide if the target altitude will be changed to 725 feet or 775 feet. This makes the second round much more difficult as teams need to plan for both situations and adapt on the fly.
In addition to the competition, students are encouraged to tour an extension of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, VA. Representatives from Lockheed Martin, NASA, and other notable sponsors will also be attending, and there are a number of social events meant to get teams from across the country to interact and build connections.
Interview with Sam and Aaruh:
What was your biggest accomplishment this season?
Aarush: Making it to nationals, after our first flight, we had no idea if we would even make it with a very high score in a sport where low scores are prioritized.
Sam: My biggest accomplishment was making that near-perfect score launch.
What was your biggest challenge this season?
Aarush: Our biggest challenge this season was the weather; we would deal with bad weather, which would not allow us to launch. In the winter months, the field was either covered in snow or muddy, which posed difficulty in us getting our rocket back. And during fall and spring, the wind was against us and was terrible, and it did not help us one bit. We would’ve done much better with better weather, so the weather was our main challenge.
Sam: My biggest challenge was my non-flexible schedule.
What was the funniest/most memorable moment for you?
Aarush: The funniest moment was when we had to dispose of our old egg, so we chucked it into a tree. The most memorable moment was getting the flight with a score of 1; there were a lot of feelings going on, lots of happiness and joy going around after that launch, and that made it very memorable.
Sam: The most memorable thing was leading the team while Aarush was away on his 3-week vacation.
What are you looking forward to doing at Nationals
Aarush: The main thing we are looking forward to doing at nationals is getting top 10 and possibly winning. We all know that we have made it this far, and we want to go farther, and to go farther, we have to win. And to win, we will give it our all.
Sam: I am looking forward to hopefully winning nationals and just being able to go down to DC because I have never been down there before.
