Testing its two rockets in preparation for The American Rocketry Challenge (TARC), which was set for June 11-13 in Dayton, Ohio, the five active club members were incredulous as they stared at the wreckage. Their first rocket disintegrated during its flight near the WCHS soccer field, and the second split right down the middle as it crashed back to the ground.

But after a few moments of assessing the carnage, they realized the answer to their problems was obvious: It was time to rebuild, and quickly.

“It was way too many long days at the high school, probably six to eight hours a day for a week or so getting the rockets rebuilt,” WCHS senior-to-be and club member Jayce Abens said.

“It was some long afternoons, but we already had the previous designs and we knew what we were doing, so it was just getting it done,” Madisen Pulis, a sophomore-to-be, said. “It was honestly mostly just a guessing game, like guessing with the weights in everything.”

-Submitted photo
A rocket disintegrates in flight during a test flight by the Webster City High School Rocketry Club. The team jumped into action to rebuild two rockets just days before they were scheduled to compete in The American Rocketry Challenge in Dayton, Ohio.

Whether it was plenty of skill with a little bit of luck thrown in, they’ll never know for sure. But with two new rockets in tow, four members of the club — Abens, Pulis, Jaidyn Elledge and Brenden Gray — made the long journey to Dayton and proved that WC Rocketry is one of the best high school clubs in the country.

That’s right … the country.

On Monday, the students — Samantha Morgan was also an active team member and Drew Schwering had served as the team captain — and advisor Mark Murphy learned the good news — WC Rocketry had won the regional in Dayton and placed third in the national competition. The team watched the online awards ceremony together and celebrated its accomplishments.

“We thought we were doing great when we were 35th two years ago,” Abens said. “It’s awesome, more than I could have expected.”

A total of 615 teams competed in the American Rocketry Challenge, the world’s largest rocketry challenge, and 100 teams from 27 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands advanced to the national stage.

-Submitted photo
Samantha Morgan, Jaidyn Elledge, Brenden Gray, Madisen Pulis and Jayce Abens celebrate their third-place national win.

Pulis compared it to a wrestling state tournament. She felt like she was standing on the top of the podium, and her friends were standing beside her for the ride.

“We were all pretty excited,” she said. “You know how everybody is excited when you win a state tournament? It was like that, it’s a huge tournament. We were just hoping that we weren’t going to make fools out of ourselves, and we obviously didn’t.”

WC Rocketry won $14,500 from the prize pool of $100,000. The students will split $12,500 in scholarship money, while $2,000 will go back to the club for future expenses.

Normally held in Washington, D.C., the national competition was split into regions across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why WC Rocketry landed in Dayton. The 2020 competition was canceled last June, but teams were able to use the rockets they had built for the 2021 competition.

Well, every team except WC Rocketry thanks to the late rebuild.

Rockets needed to carry one egg to two different altitudes with a flight time inside a set time range. The first launch had to reach an altitude of 775 feet within 39-42 seconds, while the second flight needed to travel 825 feet in 41-44 seconds.

The scoring is tricky to digest, but let’s try. Say the rocket on the first flight traveled 774 feet or 776 feet — one point would be added to the score, and so on. For the time, four points were added per second away from the time range. If flight No. 1 lasted 38 or 43 seconds, then four points were accrued.

In other words, the closer a team’s score was to zero, the better. Point totals for the two flights were added together to get a final score.

On WC Rocketry’s first flight in Dayton, the club reached the Holy Grail — a perfect score.

“That’s basically a hole-in-one,” Abens said. “I was pumped.”

A faster than expected descent on flight No. 2 ruined any chance WC Rocketry had of perfection again, but with a final tally of 11.84 points, the team was optimistic that it had attained its goal of a Top 10 finish in the country.

Looking back, Abens says being forced to rebuild turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The team was able to make some modifications that turned out to be factors in the team’s success.

And, yes, the new rockets went through test launching — a prerequisite prior to nationals — without any issues.

“We had a problem where our (original) two rockets were almost too heavy to reach the 825 (feet),” Abens said. “We made some internal design changes that brought the weight down quite a bit. It gave us a lot more flexibility for sure after the rebuild.”

In addition to the prize money, WC Rocketry also earned an invitation to participate in NASA’s Student Launch Initiative, which is a step up to the big leagues.

“It’s maybe a reach for our skill set and the budget of our team, but we haven’t talked about our options yet as a team,” Abens said. “That’s what the Iowa State rocketry club competes in”

For now, WC Rocketry will continue to bask in its success and national exposure it brought to its small community in central Iowa. And with new parameters set for the 2022 competition, new rockets will need to be designed and built.

New expectations will need to be set as well.

“We’ve got to do better than third, right?” Abens said with a chuckle.