CLARKSVILLE, Md. — When Jasmyn Logan and Nia’mani Robinson, age 14, met up to test launch their rockets in the middle of farm here the other day, their purpose was to prepare for the upcoming national Team America Rocketry Challenge.
But as members of “Team Rocket Power” — one of 100 teams that qualified for the national competition set for May 11 in The Plains, Va. — the girls were actually aiming for new heights in more ways than one.
Team Rocket Power is a rarity among rarities. Not only is the team one of nine all-girls teams to qualify for national finals of the Team America Rocketry Challenge, also known as TARC, but their team is also the only all-girls team that is African-American, according to the local chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, or NSBE.
In order for Team Rocket Power to reach this level of completion, it took months of hard work and sacrifice. Indeed, the girls — both freshmen at Central High School in Prince George’s County — gave up several weekend days out the month since the beginning of the year to design, build and test their rockets, then repeat the process over again if necessary like they would if they were actual engineers.
That’s according to Kamili Jackson, a product assurance engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and chair of the Pre-College Initiative for the Greenbelt Space Alumni Chapter of NSBE, which is working with the girls on Team Rocket Power and other area high school students in an effort to interest them in careers in engineering.
“What made them a good team is they quietly stuck to the goal,” Jackson said. “They put the goal in front of themselves, designed it, tested it. They just kept at it, kept at it.”
The other day, the girls met up on a Sunday morning at Wayback Farm — a remote but scenic stretch of land located amid rolling hills here in Howard County.
