The Ridgeway Rocket Club team of Ben Wigley, Sanjay Bala and (my son) John Brice, won the International Youth Rocketry Challenge at the Paris Airshow last week. After beating 180 other UK teams at UKROC to qualify, they then beat the best teams from the USA, France and Japan. I sponsored and mentored the team this year and the year before. The team placed 9th overall in the UK at their first attempt, last year. Airbus was the main sponsor for UKROC and their trip to Paris.

The rocket was designed and built from scratch by the team, with various 3d printer and laser cut components. The top tube is a Pringles can (strong, cheap and full of yummy pringles)! We used a Cesseroni F Classic solid fuel motor for the launch.

The results were scored on a combination of flight (60%) and technical presentation (40%).

The flight mission was for the rocket to reach 850 feet, split into 2 sections and land the nose section in 42 to 45 seconds with an intact raw egg. The UK team managed 872 feet height and ~38 seconds duration with an intact egg. A French policewoman accidentally elbowed the rocket on the way to the launch, so it was a good job they made the fins super strong!

The UK team got an impressive 58 out of a possible 60 points on the presentation.

I’m very proud of what the boys achieved and it was such an amazing experience. VIP everything and the team got to meet and shake hands with the French Primer Minister, various French cabinet members and 5 astronauts, including NASA astronauts Charley Duke (who walked on the moon and commanded the lunar module on Apollo 16) and Mike Bloomfield.

They managed to get Mike Bloomfield to sign a rocket fin before the launch. They also got to meet a load of other interesting people from rocketry, aerospace, the US armed forces and from the other teams. Another highlight was a personal tour of an Apache gunship helicopter by the US Army (I’m so glad we are on the same side!).

Our launch:

Our onboard video from the launch:

Yesterday we got to go into the house of commons to show off the rocket and the team met various people including: space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, our member of parliament and the Minister of State for Education. There can’t be many people who have taken a rocket into the house of commons!

Next month they have a VIP tour of the Airbus factory at Stevenage. The team has also been interviewed by the local BBC radio station.

Before getting involved in UKROC my son wanted to do something technical, but he wasn’t sure what. Now he has decided he wants to do Aerospace engineering at University. Ben is also considering an aerospace career. Sanjay wants to be a corporate lawyer, maybe for an aerospace company. I’m sure it has also got a lot of other people interested in aerospace careers. So a definite result for the sponsors. A big thank you to everyone who makes the UKROC and International Rocketry Challenge competitions happen, including: ADS Group, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, NAR, AIA and all the volunteers.

If you are in the UK, USA, France or Japan, why not enter a team in 2024? It is a fantastic way to get kids involved in a challenging STEM project. And if you are looking to employ a rocket engineer a few years from now, drop me a line!