West Plains, MO. – The two teams that advanced in the American Rocketry Challenge in the Richards School District finished in the top 25 in the finals. These two teams were selected out of 922 teams in the United States to be finalists in the challenge. There were 100 teams in the finals and more than 5,000 students from 922 teams in 45 states competed in the 2024 American Rocketry Challenge.
The High School team, “The Rockets”, finished 14th and the Middle School team, “The Challengers”, finished 16th in the United States. Since the teams finished in the top 25, both teams were invited to participate in NASA’s Student Launch initiative. This marks the 6th trip to the national finals since the Richard R5 School District began competing in 2017. For them to have qualified to go to the finals, both teams had to design, build, and launch a model rocket that would safely carry one raw egg with a target flight duration of 43-46 seconds and an altitude of 820 feet.
Teams at the National Finals of the American Rocketry Challenge represented 28 states from Washington to Flordia and competed for a total of $100,000 in prize money and scholarships.
