Spring Grove Area Middle School Places First and Second at two Battle of the Rockets Events!

Battle of the Rockets Website

Six Spring Grove Area Middle School students competed in the Battle of the Rockets competition in Culpeper, Virginia this weekend.  The Battle of the Rockets competition has three different events that middle, high school and university teams can enter.  Spring Grove Area Middle School competed in the Target Altitude Competition and the Deployable Payload Competition. In the Target Altitude Competition, the team had to design, build and launch a rocket that was build with a smaller than 1 to 1 ratio (meaning that it had to be shorter than it was wide).  The rocket had to fly on an F motor and the target altitude was 1100ft.  The team’s best two flights were altitudes of 1084ft and 1095ft placing them first in the competition ahead of universities such as Virginia Tech, George Washington and RPI!
 
In the Deployable Payload competition, the team had to design and build a rocket that will deploy an electronic payload at apogee that will send live telemetry data back to a base station in flight and open a parachute at 200ft off the ground.  During the school year, the team had to complete two oral presentations via video conference with competition reviewers.  The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) was completed in December 2024 and the Critical Design Review (CDR) was completed in March 2025.  Both design reviews were scored and contributed to the team’s overall score and ranking.  The rocket had to reach an altitude between 700ft and 1200ft on a G motor.  The Spring Grove team on their first scored flight reached a height of 810ft and the electronic payload and parachute worked perfectly!  The team placed second in the event with a score of 97 points. 
 
Team members were:
 
Gautham
Greyson
Logan
Aidan
Eland
Xavier
 
Advisor – Brian Hastings
Assistant Advisor – Janet Senft
 
 
We have results:
 
For target Altitude:
1st place - team 1120 - Spring Grove Area Middle School
2nd place - team 1110 - Explorer Post 1010
3rd place - team 1160 - Chantilly HS
4th place - team 1150 - Chantilly HS
5th place - team 1060 - Virginia Tech
 
For Deployable Payload:
1st place - team 1000 - Miami University of Ohio
2nd place - team 1030 - Spring Grove Area Middle School
3rd place - team 1070 - Virginia Tech