All-Girl Student “Team Rocket Power” Blasts off at the Speed of Light… to the White House

Science is all about proving things with verifiable evidence, so we’ve got some evidence to the contrary of anyone who thinks girls aren’t into science. A group of three high school girls demonstrated an expertise in rocket engineering that got them invited to the White House Science Fair.

In fact, this year’s White House Science Fair made a general effort to focus on the achievements of women in STEM (science, technology, education, and mathematics) fields, and it looks like they found no shortage there.

I’m not sure if the members of Team Rocket Power (Nia’mani Robinson, 15; Jasmyn Logan, 15; and Rebecca Chapin-Ridgely, 17) chose their name for Team Rocket reasons or for Rocket Power reasons, but I’m on board with either of those. You know, in addition to the fact that they spent countless hours working evenings and weekends cranking out some pretty great rocket technology and competing in the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC).

The TARC is the largest annual rocket-building contest in the world and has about 7,000 students from around the country compete in teams to build a rocket that flies at a specific altitude and duration, which is specified in the rules each year. The Marlyand Team Rocket Power’s creation flew more than 750 feet and back in less than a minute, and it returned its cargo of two raw eggs unharmed as it landed by parachute. Their success there made them one of 100 teams from various science competitions invited to participate in the White House Science Fair.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, who also attended the event, said on his blog:

At NASA, women are not only astronauts; they also run science missions. They engineer and build our many spacecraft.

Our chief financial officer, chief scientist and one of our field center directors are women. They are program managers, budget analysts and communicators. They serve in every capacity and continue to prove something we all know — as Amelia Earhart famously said, men and women are equal ‘in jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower.’

Hear from Team Rocket Power and other participants in the White House Science Fair below:

(via Space.com, photo by NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

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