A few of Russellville’s rocket team members meet the MythBusters, Jaimie Hyneman and Adam Savage, at astronomy night at the White House.

By Macy Reeves for the FCT

The RHS Rocket Team returned last week from a trip to Washington, D.C., by special invitation because of achievements at the world competition.

The team headed out early Oct. 18 and toured the Pentagon, getting to see the 9/11 memorial, executive offices and the Marine branch. Team members were also gifted coins from the Pentagon. Following that, they headed for the White House for astronomy night, an event for students, teachers, engineers and scientists who had achieved something in the science field.

“The trip went wonderfully,” said mentor Tracy Burns, who traveled with the students. “Astronomy night was great. They had telescopes set up, and engineers from NASA talked about their explorations and about how they were going to grow food on the space station … To hear all the things that kids were doing around the world gives me hope for the future generation.”

The Rocket Team never got the chance to meet President Barack Obama, but they did get to meet other science celebrities. They were also mentioned in Obama’s speech for their accomplishments.

“My favorite part was getting to meet all the engineers, the MythBusters and Bill Nye,” said Niles Butts.

“My favorite part was the entire team being together again, without the stress of school and extracurricular activities. It was just us spending time together and traveling and having fun,” said Chelsea Suddith.

Back home in Russellville, the Rocket Team began a busy schedule following the trip to D.C. Oct. 17 the team went to UNA to help other teams that haven’t built rockets before build kits, and some of the team members gave presentations on how to use rocket modeling software. The Rocket Team will also be participating in a NASA student launch, which will take place all next year, as well as the TARC competition.

Andrew Heath said the team is excited about the NASA competition, which is more advanced than anything they have done before.

The team has also been looking into expanding its horizons and participating in more competitions.

“We’ve been researching an environmentally-friendly car-building competition called Green Car; we’re not for sure about participating in it yet, but we are looking into that,” said Heath.

The Rocket Team was awarded the Michael D. Roberts Excellence Award at a luncheon on Oct. 7, which is for a group or a person who socially or economically affected the North Alabama region.

Oct. 31 the Rocket Team will have a fundraiser at the RHS football field starting at 10 a.m. They will launch rockets as a partnership with the Rotary Club. Tickets are $10 for adults, $2 for children and free for children 7 and younger. Three people will be selected by raffle to launch a rocket.