A local team of Sixth Form students from The Ridgeway School and Sixth Form College share their amazing success.
In 2020 Ben, John and Sanjay started their own rocket team, designing building small rockets and launching them. For interest they entered a regional tournament and qualified for the national finals where they came 9th. The contest is well competed from students from across the country, including the most prestigious private schools.
Boyed by this, they entered the next year and ended up winning the Nationals and qualifying for the international Rocketry tournament which took place during the Paris Air Show. Here, they won again with a historic high score of 58/60. They were presented to the prime minister of France, Elisabeth Borne and the Apollo 16 Astronaut Commander, the last man to walk on the moon. They also ate a meal with ‘Top Gun Pilots’, ex American and current astronauts.
During this their talent was identified by David Epson of Propel Rocketry. He arranged for the team to visit 7 states across America including visits to the Pentagon (exceptionally rare for a non-US citizen), Nasa Goddard Space Centre and Joby Aeorspace. Job offers, including from NASA have flooded in for the all of them.
They now move on to become official mentors for Propel Rocketry and our next all girl team of rocketeers in year 12.The team were supported by their parents and our Technology technician John Vincent (a Wroughton stalwart).
Their achievements are definitely “out of this world!”