Nueva rocket team ready for liftoff

Named for the school’s mascot, the Maverick, the team of 10 students meets weekly to design and test their rockets for The American Rocket Challenge. TARC is a national competition with around 5,000 middle and high school participants.

With sponsorships from Intel and Atlassian, the student-run team has both the resources and passion to ensure the program can continue for years to come.

“Our school has a lot of other big sorts of formal extracurriculars and competitive teams, for example, a robotics team,” Graham-Martinez said. “We’re using that for inspiration for building our programs so we can have something that’s long-lasting, and so that many future students can get sort of the same benefits that we have from this program.”

Each team member has a specialty, and in conjunction, they collaborate to design, build and launch rockets.

“Part of TARC is building the rocket, and part of TARC is developing the skills you need to know how to build the rocket,” Graham-Martinez said. “So, teaching people is going to be very important, and also building the tools we need to enable us to build other rockets in the future readily.”

The team was notified on April 8 that they did not qualify for nationals — two of three launches were unsuccessful due to engine failures.

“I think, overall, TARC is a competition about consistency,” Ramanathan said. “And for that reason, just getting everything to be consistent and to work exactly how it’s supposed to on launch day, has always been a challenge. And I think it’ll continue to be our goal for next year.”

Still, the team remains optimistic for future competitions and will now work in the post-season to perfect their designs with new iterations, emphasizing the importance of recording data and practice launches.

After eight months of working together, the team is most proud of its achievements in teamwork and problem-solving.

Taking frequent trips to the Central Valley for launch tests, the group dedicated many weekends to commuting and testing. When trying to get data for qualifying rounds, the team was shocked one Saturday to find the gates of the launch site locked. They later learned it was due to fire safety concerns, but they persevered. Calling locations stretching from Northern California to Nevada, they were dedicated to securing a testing site. A few phone calls later, the team was able to reserve a spot the next morning and made the trials in time.

“We ended up getting qualification flights in, and I’m just really proud of how the team sort of problem-solved in that situation and ended up getting our rocket off the ground despite the obvious logistical challenges,” Graham-Martinez said.

In the future, Mission Maverick aims to expand its participation in competitions through the National Association of Rocketry and the Rockets for Schools competition.

Moreover, they intend to expand their program by splitting into two teams, optimizing potential for success in competitions. With goals to train more underclassmen and promote more leadership positions, Mission Maverick is reestablishing itself as a lasting program at Nueva.

Lexi Goldstein is a senior at Burlingame High School. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.