MORE than 40 pupils from five schools across Notts got out of the classroom yesterday to test their wits against each other in an inter-schools rocket launching competition at the University of Nottingham.
The Year 12 students from The Kimberley School, Chilwell, Trinity, Arnold Hill, and boys from Nottingham High School took off from their separate schools, and spent a morning building the rockets out of just paper, card, sticky tape and Blu Tack.
They were allowed to make three models, and tested the range by applying their knowledge of aerodynamics, angles and pressure – launching their missiles from a pad made of plumbing pipes and powered by a bike pump.
Teams were challenged to hit a target on the floor at the other side of the University's sports hall. The closer the rocket landed to the centre, the less points were given and the team with the lowest score won.
Megan Hickman, 16, Amy Cheung, 17, and Sergio Benavides, 16, of Trinity School blasted their way to victory and each won an anti-gravity levitation kit for their efforts.
"It was quite erratic," said Megan. "A lot of trial and error was involved and we spent a lot of time practicing this morning, so we're glad to come out on top."
Amy added: "It's great to get out of the classroom to do something fun with physics. It's more interesting than just learning from a book."
And Sergio Benavides, who is originally from Spain, said: "You can use the theory you learn at school and see it in action."
All three of the winning team study A-level physics, but the competition was not exclusively for those learning the subject.
James Mulligan, 17, Barney Mersich, 17, and Clare Kelly, 17, also attend Trinity. Barney, who studies further maths, said: "It's good that people who have an interest outside of their studies can get involved."
Chilwell students Rachel Smith, Amber Gosden and Mancheng Vang enjoyed the hands on approach to the day.
"We based our design on a traditional rocket ship," said Amber.
"We were awful this morning but we have been getting closer and more consistent over the day."
Rachel added: "We've not done stuff like this before, so it's been really fun. We're mainly competing against the other group from our school, who actually tried to sabotage us earlier."
Beth Thomas, 17, Alicia Martin-Jones, 17, and Lucy Oliver, 16, were representing The Kimberley School as Team LAB.
Beth said: "It's been nice to see how other people have gone about designing it as well as seeing our rockets fly across the hall."
Lucy added: "There's quite a lot of pressure on us, but that's the aim of the game."
