Senior finds her niche building model rockets

Becoming a leader of anything in the world of engineering is difficult, but being a female and rising to the top is harder still.

Senior Diana Katchour, however, has been able to break this cycle as an officer in the school’s engineering club, the Mechanical Science and Engineering Team (M-SET).

Although she has risen over the years to become an officer and leader of the club’s Teen America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) team, getting to her current position required a long progression of learning that began in her freshman year.

“I really enjoyed physics and material engineering in middle school, and had also watched the entirety of ‘Star Trek’ as a kid, so that really helped me make the decision to join TARC,” Katchour said.

The premise of the club is to compete every year, from the beginning of December to the end of April and try to place as high as they can make the National Finals, which are held in May of every year.

The challenge usually involves building a model rocket that can carry two raw eggs, one vertical and one horizontal, to an altitude of 850 feet, stay airborne for between 44-46 seconds, and then return all parts of the rocket to the ground safely as a single connected set, using a recovery device of the team’s choice.

After observing the upperclassmen manage the team and complete the challenge, Katchour began to take on more responsibilities.

“I did a bit of everything: computer models, construction, and record keeping,” Katchour said. “I paid really close attention to all the details and the way [Class of 2014 alumnus Ivan France] led the team because I knew I wanted to be the team captain the following year.”

The rocket-making process consists of two parts, Katchour said: modeling and execution of the design. Modeling the rocket involves using computer software to design the rockets virtually with different fin and body designs and using the models to run simulations.

“The process is super labor intensive because you spend hour looking at the computer screen looking at your model rocket take different path in the sky according to different variables you change,” Katchour said. “It’s a lot of guess and check and it is exhausting spending your afternoon looking at the same dull screen never knowing if what you are doing is actually going to work.”

After fine-tuning these electronic designs, the team of six students then progresses to take the design and create the rocket with wood, mailing tubes and pool noodles.

“Even though the hard part of getting a basic design down, it is time to actually create a real model of what you designed,” Katchour said. “Sometimes this process can go smoothly, but other times your computer model may have gone through the wrong simulation and the rocket you end up with is completely wrong.”

Through her hard work, Katchour was made the lead of TARC in May of 2014; she was assigned to begin her role as head at the start of her junior year. On her team were current juniors David Wang, Aden Choy and Rahul Kumar.

Though she reached her goal of becoming captain, Katchour faced challenges in balancing work and leading the entire TARC program, which competes from December to April.

One of the greatest difficulties for her is keeping the team organized, which included sending out weekly emails about meetings and upcoming launches. These were new responsibilities for her, but she feels that by next competition season she will have the kinks worked out for a much smoother season.

Along the way, she has also had to overcome social anxieties when leading the other team members, especially in public speaking and leadership.

At the beginning of the season, the first few weeks in December, the team was off on a bad foot. With low student turnout and less dedicated members than years prior, the team was struggling to meet early deadlines and create a rocket that they were proud of.

With wings falling apart because of bad glue jobs to pool noodles always spilling out out of the rocket’s body, Katchour acknowledged that leading the team was a difficult task because no matter how bad things seemed to get she had to remain calm and act like an anchor for the rest of the team.

She said these weak areas made her delay launching her team’s rocket for scoring. She was “sad how the rockets turned out at the beginning” and did not want bad scores from those launches.

Despite these early-season mishaps, Katchour was able to ultimately join the team members in a united front in the final weeks of the competition. She took a stronger role as a leader and got people to get work done before the first launch of the year last March, where she was trying to make sure the rocket was launched off the launch pad and at least made it into the sky.

“I was worried that I missed an important part somewhere and that the rocket would blow up,” Katchour said. “The first launch felt like a test of my knowledge and ability to lead a TARC team.”

With the preparation from the first launch under her belt, Katchour was confident in taking her team out to Snow Ranch, a field 30 miles from Stockton used to launch model rockets and other crafts, and do the team’s final launch on April 4.

Taking the two-hour drive to the ranch on the early Saturday morning was nerve racking for Katchour as she prepared for the final launch.

To reach the world tournament, the team had to score under 25 points (where 0 is the best possible score). The team gains points if they do not reach a minimum height or they crack the egg that is carried in the inside of their rocket.

When the team ultimately earned a score of 2.6 after the launch, Katchour was ecstatic because she did much better than she could have ever hoped. She couldn’t contain her happiness in knowing that the team qualified for the National Finals.

In May, the team went to Washington, D.C., to partake in the fly off between the top 100 teams.

Going to the East Coast was a life-changing experience for Katchour. Not only was she surrounded by hundreds of students from around the country who shared her passion for engineering and rocketry, she was in the nation’s capital, a place she has always wanted to visit.  

“I hadn’t ever travelled to the East Coast before and it was interesting to observe the differences between Washington, D.C., and California,” Katchour said.

Although the team qualified for the World competition, they did not make the cut after the first round to continue on.

Despite the early end of the tournament, Katchour had an experience she says she will never forget.

Through the past three years, Katchour has gained major satisfaction from the roles she plays on the team as well as having the opportunity to learn valuable knowledge along the way.

“I enjoy rocketry because we get to transform pieces of cardboard, pool noodles and epoxy into a rocket that soars hundreds of feet into the sky with the use of explosives,” Katchour said. “It’s incredibly satisfying to see our rocket shoot up into the sky, and each time we go to a launch site, there’s always something new and exciting to experience.”