The American Rocketry Challenge is a STEM program for high school students, and every year is a different challenge.

What’s not different, is one North Country’s school’s consistent qualification for it.

What You Need To Know

  •  Heuvelton has a rocketry team that recently went to Virginia for the national championships and finished 11th out of more than 900 teams

  •  The challenge and sport helps students learn valuable lessons in the world of STEM

  •  The team's mentor, Bob Kennedy, is retiring after 20 years, in which five of his teams finished in the top 30

Five students, all juniors at Heuvelton Central in St. Lawrence County, all are in love with rocketry.

They are each passionate about STEM — science, technology, engineering and math.

“I’m taking right now, taking welding at BOCES,” Bradyn Dawson said about his future. “The fact of just knowing basic needs and everything will help me also in my welding career with knowing like what stuff does and what I need to do with that.”

The Heuvelton Rocketry Team is made up of five students who are quickly becoming STEM stars.

“We learned the basic engineering design process," junior Adam West said. "It was, you know, simply build, fly, modify [and] repeat."

It's lessons that these students recently took with them to Virginia to take part in the American Rocketry Challenge.

There were 922 teams and more than 5,000 students from 45 different states at the competition all looking to fly an egg some 800 feet in the sky and have it come back down safely.

"It's pretty cool to have the North Country represented in such a big way, and the national stage,” team member Willem Gleeson said, while mentioning some teams get so nervous, their egg lands safely, but they drop it or crush it after the flight and end up being disqualified.

Out of all those teams, Heuvelton finished 11th.

“It just gives everyone a burst of joy and happiness, seeing that that launched a straight as it did,” Dawson said of the team’s championship flight.

However, that success is nothing new for Heuvelton. Over the last 20 years, it has five top-30 finishes in this event. It’s a credit to physics teacher and team mentor Bob Kennedy.

“It's been extremely successful, and the kids have been the best to work with," Kennedy said. "It's just been it's been one of the highlights of my career."

It's a career that is now landing as Kennedy has decided to retire.

“He’s probably my favorite teacher. He's always been there for us,” team member Shane Mudge said.

“He's helped me through some emotional, emotional times," team member Cooper White added. "And he’s taught me a lot."

And that's why this year during these championships, Kennedy was named Mentor of the Year.

Because Heuvelton finished in the top 25, it has received an invitation to apply for NASA’s Student Launch Workshop.

It's an opportunity, with Kennedy retiring, the team will take advantage of, as they hope to get that experience and give him one last go.