Calling Tomorrow's Rocket Scientists

By: Pam Wickham, Raytheon vice president of Corporate Affairs and Communications

Here's a math problem for you: What do 500 students, 750 feet of altitude and 40-45 seconds in time equal? If you said the Team America Rocketry Challenge, you'd be right. The top 100 teams converged on a launch pad in the middle of a field just outside of Washington, D.C., last month for the National Finals flyoff.

More than 700 students were on hand, each vying to get their team's rocket to fly the distance of two football fields and stay aloft for 45 seconds. And, that wasn't even the really hard part. At the end of it all, their payload had to come back to earth intact and undamaged in a parachute. Did I mention that payload was a raw egg?

You might well say, "What does an event like that have to do with inspiring tomorrow's technologists, inventors and engineers?" That's easy. It has everything to do with it. It's all about showing students what's possible when you embrace math and science.

One of the prizes for this year's winning team from Rockwall-Heath High School in Heath, Texas, is a trip to the 49th International Paris Air Show and an opportunity to compete in the International Rocketry Challenge against teams from the United Kingdom and France. Raytheon is proud to sponsor the U.S. winning team's participation. Essentially, it's about making a bet today that will pay off down the road. Twenty years from now we have to make sure that there is a robust pipeline in place so that we continue to innovate as an industry and as a country. Our sponsorship of TARC is part of our MathMoveU program, which is aimed at middle school students. Our hope is to inspire the next generation to enter science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — fields — and strive to become future rocket scientists, starting with the winners of Friday's competition.