Hosted out of Murrumbidgee Regional High School (MRHS), MASE launched the challenge in partnership with 15 local schools, aiming to encourage hands on learning with a focus on aerodynamics.

In August, staff at the partner primary schools were trained by Deputy Principal of the NSW Virtual STEM Academy at MASE, Ian Preston in a variety of aerodynamic principles in preparation for their own rocket building activities in their classrooms.

"The AVC Bottle Rocket challenge is an example of the Murrumbidgee Academy of STEM Excellence, located at MRHS, delivering outstanding STEM opportunities to students and staff at MRHS and its partner primary schools," Mr Preston said.

Goolgowi Public School students stole the show winning the most aesthetic rocket (with a Christmas snow globe theme), best engineering report, video presentation and poster and finally as the overall winning school of the 15 who participated.

Classroom teacher at Goolgowi PS, Beth Liddicoat said that all of the Years 5 and 6 students who participated were 'extremely excited' and 'surprised' to have won so many categories.

"They put in lots of hard work designing their rockets and putting together their portfolio," Mrs Liddicoat said.

The students all agreed that the best part of the challenge was launching their rockets and seeing how high they would fly.

"It was really fun making the rockets and flying them to see how far they would fly and then fixing any mistakes to make them fly even further," Laurie Beasley said.

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Darlington Point Public School also secured a win with the longest distance covered by a rocket launched.

Principal Richard Busby said that the students used 1.25L soft drink bottles for the body, corflute for the finds and adding adhesives and materials for additional weight.

"We worked on our own design to make our rockets and learnt a lot about aerodynamics, the centre point of mass and pressure," Mr Busby said.

On the day of launch, many rockets flew in all sorts of directions, some even landing on the roof of a classroom!

"Having the winning rocket for distance made me feel proud," Darlington Point PS student Amarni Coe said.

"It was awesome that the rocket beat the second place winner by around 30 metres.

"When I am in High School at MRHS, I hope to compete in other STEM challenges as it was a great experience."

A full list of winners is as follows:

Distance Rocket

Aesthetic Rocket

Engineering Report

Video Presentation

Poster

Overall Winning School

In 2022, MASE will run challenges every term like the Aeronautical Challenge, with a cumulative point score system to crown the overall 'best STEM school' at the end of the school year.

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