A team of Bellevue, Wash., high schoolers soared above teams from France, Japan, the UK, and Ukraine to win the International Rocketry Challenge in England over the weekend.
Washington Youth Aerospace, a team made up of six ninth graders from Bellevue’s Interlake High School, represented the United States in the competition at the Farnborough International Airshow. Team members include Daniel Tadesse, Bao-Ky Tran, Mikhail Antipin, Antoine Vigneron, Nikhil Sirivara, and Anay Mediwala.
With a target altitude of 750 feet, the team launched its rocket, carrying a raw egg payload, to an altitude of 765 feet with a flight time of 38.16 seconds.
The rocket launch counts for 60% of a team’s score and a presentation for judges counts for 40%. The team ranked first in both categories.
“Our success in the competition is extremely special given the work we have been putting in from middle school,” team member Nikhil Sirivara told GeekWire. “We could not have done this without the mentors and friends who helped us along the way and this win has inspired us to aim even higher going forward.”
Washington Youth Aerospace finished second in May at the 2026 National Finals of the American Rocketry Challenge, overcoming a last-minute scramble to replace a rocket motor that was lost in the mail. The team stepped in to represent the U.S. in the international event when the national finals winner from California had a scheduling conflict.
Sudheer Sirivara, a parent advisor and chaperone, said the students got a chance to interact with the teams from other countries and also had a cultural exchange program where each group presented something unique about their hometown.
They also explored interesting aircraft, including Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, and C-130 and F-35 airplanes. The team had a chance to see London before returning to the Pacific Northwest on Sunday.
“This remarkable achievement reflects months of dedication, innovation, teamwork, and perseverance,” the American Rocketry Challenge said in a LinkedIn post. “From designing and testing their rocket to competing on the global stage, these students demonstrated the technical skill and determination that define the next generation of aerospace leaders.”
The American Rocketry Challenge is the flagship STEM initiative from the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) trade group, and is supported by industry partners as a way of strengthening the workforce pipeline of engineers and scientists.
Washington Youth Aerospace is looking forward to participating in the NASA Student Launch Initiative (SLI) next, as well as next year’s rocket challenge.
Welcome to Edition 9.04 of the Rocket Report! We've had to wait an extra week for SpaceX to get its 13th Starship test flight off the ground. A last-second abort on July 16 led engineers to roll the booster back to its hangar in South Texas to swap out engines. Starship is now back on the launch pad. Liftoff is set for Friday evening. A flawless launch and reentry will put SpaceX on the cusp of an orbital flight later this year. Ars will have a comprehensive recap story after the completion of the test flight.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
India's first private rocket reaches orbit. Indian space officials celebrated the debut flight of Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket, India’s first fully commercial satellite launcher, as a “grand success” Saturday after an on-target climb into a 280-mile-high orbit following liftoff from an island spaceport in the Bay of Bengal, Ars reports. The Vikram-1 lifted off from India’s primary spaceport on Sriharikota Island around midday local time. The launch was delayed more than a half-hour to resolve a last-minute technical problem. The countdown resumed, culminating in the command to ignite Vikram-1’s solid-fueled first stage booster to propel the rocket off the launch pad.
© Zhou Quan/VCG via Getty Images
Microsoft is redesigning Windows Search with improved local results, fewer promotional elements, better file previews, and more control over web-based search.
The post Windows Search Gets a Major Revamp Focused on Usability appeared first on TechRepublic.
Jurassic Park, while beloved as a film, has been the subject of snarky memes for the infamous line in which one of the characters declares, "This is a Unix system, I know this!" while using a computer with an unusual 3D file manager interface.
Despite the memes, the film's production team was meticulous in accurately sourcing the right PCs (and adjacent details) for the sets—not too much of a surprise, given writer Michael Crichton's background with computing and his obsessive attention to detail in the book the film is based on.
© Universal Pictures
Before replacing Windows 10 with ChromeOS Flex, check device support, hardware, apps, security requirements, and backup options.
The post 5 Things to Check Before Installing ChromeOS Flex on a Windows 10 PC appeared first on TechRepublic.
The NTSC television standard is a masterpiece of mid-century engineering, to pack a color image into the transmission bandwidth of a monochrome one, and to do so while maintaining backward compatibility with earlier monochrome TV sets. In terms of its timings and choice of sync and carrier frequencies it’s elegantly thought out for maximum quality on a 1950s round-CRT color TV set.
The trouble is, that while the standards are exacting, the receivers are quite forgiving, and will display adequately even with substantially off-spec video. [Nicole Express] is here with an in-depth examination of a time when that was pushed just a little bit too far, explaining why the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) displayed wobbly color images.
We’re treated to a run-through of the NTSC standard itself, and a look at how some of the other consoles and home computers of that era either had similar problems, or managed to avoid them. The key lies in the exacting timing required to achieve perfect interlacing, and the NES’s use of a single crystal to provide all the clocks. The dot clock on adjacent frames was almost right, but not quite, leading to a side-to-side wobble that while barely perceptible, was exacerbated by some graphics. It’s a fascinating read.
We’ve looked at composite video in detail in the past.
NES image: JCD1981NL, CC BY 3.0.
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