When 15-year old Naomi Kim moved to Austin with her family from St. Paul, she wanted to find a way to meet new people in school. At her old school, she was involved in a rocket club, and she thought, Why not launch a similar club in Austin?

“I was looking for an easy way to get involved in school,” Naomi, a sophomore, said.

The Austin High School Packer Rocket Team launched its new rocket club this year. Naomi helped start the team, as she was a member of a Team America Rocket Challenge (TARC) club in St. Paul, which is a hands-on, project-based learning program modeled around the aerospace industry’s design, fabrication and testing processes.

When Naomi’s family moved at the beginning of the school year from St. Paul, many Austin students had already signed up for the clubs they would be involved with. So Naomi decided to see if a club could be started in Austin.

“I’ve always been interested in engineering things and hands-on things, and I wanted to do the rocket club,” Naomi said.

She also hoped to make friends while in the club, which was a successful mission.

“In the rocket club, I did meet a lot of friends which was a really good thing for me because I struggle making friends,” she said.

All students participate in a team of three to 10 students to design, build, and fly a rocket. Like aerospace companies work within specific design parameters, every year the challenge requires teams to achieve the same basic mission-oriented goals of hitting a precise altitude, landing within a specific flight time window, and returning a raw egg (the “astronaut”) without cracking.

The team builds two rockets: one to launch and represent the team and one backup rocket. The president of the club does much of the computer work, while other members are assigned to paint the rockets, measure, work on fins and complete other tasks.

The rocket club held fundraisers to purchase rocket simulation software — like RocSim — along with rocket building materials, launch systems and engines.

This year’s club members included Naomi, Chrissy Nelson, Joseph McNally, Maddie Mullenbach, Livia Dyke, Nora Curtis, Leah Meineke, and Advisor and Career and Technical Education Teacher Craig Knippel.

Knipple has experience with rockets. He’s involved in the Tripoli Southern Minnesota, a branch of Tripoli Rocketry Association Inc., and he hopes the students will have a good experience with the AHS club.

“I just really enjoyed the rocketry from a long time ago, and I thought ‘Hey, sounds good, let’s see what we can do with this,’” he said. “And Naomi found some people and away we go.”

The team designed and built from scratch a rocket following the 2015 TARC rocket guidelines, which can be found at www.rocketcontest.com. They practiced winter launches at Wescott Sports Complex, though the rocket was caught in a tree, thanks to strong winds.

“We shot off some rockets by the athletic field … but the winds weren’t so favorable, and as you can imagine they got caught up in a tree,” Knipple said.

Mayor Tom Stiehm and the fire department helped out by recovering the rocket, and the launches were relocated to Chrissy Nelson’s land southwest of Highway 105, which had more open space.

Packer Rocket Team completed several launches to ready themselves for the Qualifying Launches. Rick Vataas, the official TARC score keeper, joined the team on March 14 to officiate the launches.

A task is included each year, and this year’s challenge was for those students who win a spot at the National Finals to fly their rockets to two separate altitudes. The team launched its rocket named “Tacit Ronin” three times, and two of the launches were successful in meeting the qualification criteria. However, the team didn’t advance this year.

Knipple hopes with an earlier start and more time, they will have a shot at making it next school year.

Knipple hopes students might find a path in aerospace if they enjoy the club enough.

“To have some success and feel good about what you’re doing, continue with mathematics and science,” he said. “Maybe to get a job in the aerospace industry, do the thing that you love to do so you can go to work happy.”

Naomi hopes to make a career in similar fields.

“I actually am very interested in the engineering, like the math part of things,” she said. “So if it’s working with NASA in the math or science and engineering process, I am very interested.”

Students interested in the rocket club can contact craig.knippel@austin.k12.mn.us or see Knipple in the graphics room 546 in the Austin High School Annex.