The Stony Brook School’s Rocketry team made a milestone in our short history in our Aerospace Engineering journey by becoming one of 18 pre-college Rocketry teams chosen to be a qualified team at the 2025 NASA Student Launch Initiative
A high-powered rocketry competition at the Marshall Space Center, Huntsville, Alabama. Indeed, SBS is the only pre-college team from the Northeast of the U.S. receiving the invitation after submitting our team proposal in September, 2024. Our exceptional team is led by three students: Roger Zhou (11th grade), David Zhang (12th grade), and Sebastian Guadalupe-Pena (12th grade), who put together a competitive proposal which included our rocket design, safety protocol, and STEM Engagement with others since mid-August. Our team goal is to launch a rocket that can reach up to 6,000 feet and descend to the ground in about 110 seconds after lift-off. Additionally, towards the apex of the launch, the Team is planning to have the rocket separate and launch a glider which will then perform an experiment on its descent. This part is still in the design stage and must be approved by NASA, along with other details of the rocket before the final rocket can be launched.
The Stony Brook School rocketry’s program was founded in September 2023 by Dr. Chin-Tang Liu, a visionary STEM and Math faculty member who led and founded successful STEM programs in South Florida. In our first year the rocketry team placed #10 in the nation at the National Finals of the American Rocketry Challenge in the Plains, Virginia on Sunday, May 18th and won an award for being the top Rookie team in the Nation along with a $5,000 prize. Beyond the team's early success, our goal is to build a strong partnership with top Universities in Aerospace Engineering such as MIT, Cornell, NYU, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt U., Northwestern U. Washington U. at St. Louis, and others through a number of active research-driven projects. For us, Winning is not everything. Our STEM engagement activities are closely aligned with our belief, STEM for ALL and STEM without Borders. We are collaborating with Long Island Explorium and Emma-Clark Library to conduct several outreach events starting in November, 2024.
As we look forward to the exciting journey ahead, we would like to express our profound gratitude to the school administration and leadership. Mr. Stan Winston, Director of STEM Education at SBS, has taught students a variety of manufacturing skills and techniques for parts of the robot, and has been instrumental in facilitating the financial support needed for the program. Our program launched a website, https://brookX.org, where you can learn more about our progress. We look forward to sharing our journey with you.