Rocket team competes at NASA student launch

(From left) Mechanical engineering students Alex Drozda and Brad Christensen listen as civil engineering student Bryan Kubitschek, talks about a rocket with former NASA astronaut Clay Anderson on April 12 at Engineering Week Open House.
(From left) Mechanical engineering students Alex Drozda and Brad Christensen listen as civil engineering student Bryan Kubitschek, talks about a rocket with former NASA astronaut Clay Anderson on April 12 at Engineering Week Open House.

A team of UNL engineers is in Huntsville, Ala., through April 21 aiming to go "one mile high" with the rocket they built for the 2013 NASA student launch competition.

This is the second year the UNL Rocket Team is competing in the University Student Launch Initiative. The contest features more than 30 college and university teams. In the 2012 competition, the UNL team placed third for altitude closest to the goal.

"We were extremely excited to get third (in the altitude competition)," said Brian Kubitschek, a civil engineering junior who leads the Nebraska team. "We beat the Big Ten schools (Michigan, Purdue and Penn State) there, as well as MIT."

The UNL team is part of the Nebraska student chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. While UNL's team includes six participants, other teams feature 15 to 30 students.

In addition to Kubitschek, UNL Rocket Team members traveling to Huntsville include Brad Christensen, a junior mechanical engineering major; C.J. O'Hara, a freshman computer engineering major; Avery Quandt, a sophomore computer engineering major; and Nate Wulf, a junior mechanical engineeering major. Kevin Cole, professor of mechanical and materials engineering, is the team's adviser.

According to NASA, this annual event "challenges teams of enterprising young engineers, scientists and innovators to design, test and build large, high-powered rockets, capable of flying to the target altitude of one mile and carrying working, retrievable science or engineering payloads."

The competition culminates on launch day, April 20. NASA will provide live coverage starting at 8 a.m. at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc. The coverage includes an embedded Twitter feed at the hashtag #1MileHigh.

The UNL team organized outreach for the past year to earn event points, and led activities for hundreds of guests at the 2013 Nebraska Robotics Expo, the Lincoln Public Schools Science Fair and UNL Engineering Week Open House. The UNL AIAA members also mentored a local FIRST Lego League youth robotics group. Learn more at http://usli.unlaiaa.com/.

The UNL Rocket Team collaborated locally with the Heartland Organization of Rocketry for a test launch reaching 3,700 feet, and the Tripoli Rocketry Association helped the team prepare for the competition with launch attempt to 10,000 feet.

— Carole Wilbeck, Engineering