The Rocket Owls reaches new heights for campus

Citrus College can add another achievement to the continually growing list, and it is thanks to an academic program on campus of which you might not have heard. They are the Citrus College Rocket Owls.

The six-student team of engineering and physics students work under the direction of NASA in an eight-month competition against teams from 44 colleges and universities from across the country.

Citrus College is one of the only two community colleges invited. The Rocket Owls have consistently earned their place in the program, placing fourth overall in 2016, right behind Cornell University’s team.

NASA describes the competition as “a research-based, competitive, experiential exploration activity.”

It strives to provide relevant, cost-effective research and development of rocket propulsion systems. This project offers multiple challenges reaching a broad audience of middle and high schools, colleges and universities across the nation,” a challenge that six Citrus College students were ready to take on.

Because of the dedication demanded by the project, team members must be carefully selected.

Rocket Owls members are selected by physics professor Lucia Riderer, the faculty advisor since the program’s inception in 2012.

Riderer said she looks for students in her classes interested in participating.

From the beginning, students drive the direction of the program.

“I want to help them realize what physics and engineering are all about, and whatever they’re interested in,” Riderer said. “If I can help, I’ll help them.”

To Riderer, the program is much more than a competition. She said she appreciates the lessons students learn while participating.

“They have a lot of benefits coming out of this year-long program.” Riderer said. “They learn how to work with each other — teamwork. They learn how to meet deadlines that NASA provides for us…responsibility, accountability. They grow so much in terms of their writing skills, technical writing, referencing the milestone reports the team must make to NASA every six weeks. They start from a very fundamental level of writing a lab report that they write in physics, chemistry or biology to writing a huge amount of pages and information.”

The milestones Riderer refers to are integral to the NASA competition. Stress builds around each deadline. NASA does not tolerate late submissions, mirroring the pressure of their actual projects.

“First we start with the proposal which determines whether we get accepted,” said Marco Gudino, a pre-engineering major, “Then, it’s usually about five to six weeks between each milestone, each having their own constraints.”

Gudino said preliminary design review is the first important report sent to NASA.

He said the review requires a “design and different options of material we were considering. Then there is the critical design review, which required us to build a sub-scale rocket, which we had to have a successful launch with.”

The subscale rocket in the lab is a record of an important milestone the team passed. The rocket is in good condition aside from scratches. Other test rockets did not fare as well.

“We built two of the main rockets, two identical rockets, in case one of them crashed,” said Fadi Joseph, the Rocket Owls’ team leader, mechanical engineering major. “The one we launched last week took a nosedive.”

Joseph said being team leader “involves all the roles, combined into one.”

The destroyed rocket sits in the lab and counterbalances the successful subscale model and remaining main rocket. They are reminders of both the successes and setbacks the team has received.

Following the review are several other milestones, during which the team must also submit via video conference with the NASA scientists overseeing the Student Launch Program.

The last report, the Flight Readiness Review, was due at 8 a.m. on March 4. The team will now wait for its turn to video call with NASA regarding the final submission, less than a month away until launch day on April 6.

The project is complex from every angle. In addition to the rocket, NASA requires a payload be deployed after the rocket lands.

“This year it was either a UAV which has to deploy a beacon to a specific target after the rocket lands, or a deployable rover, simulating the mars rover. That has to travel at least 10 feet from the rocket and then collect a soil sample. This is the first year that the team decided to go with a UAV, which is exciting for us,” Joseph said.

The unmanned aerial vehicle “originally had a 3D printed body and it wouldn’t withstand pretty much anything, so we went with carbon fiber. But it’s pretty strong, I mean this fell from 30 feet in the air and it didn’t get destroyed,” Gudino said.

The 2018-2019 NASA Student Launch Competition culminates on April 6 of this year, a deadline that is rapidly approaching. The academic team will travel to Huntsville, Alabama. to take part in the final launch under the scrutiny of NASA.

The team’s launch vehicle specialist is Ivette Ayala, an engineering major.

“I design, with the help of the team, the rocket and how it is going to be laid out,” says Ayala.

The Rocket Owl’s outreach coordinator and aerospace engineering major, Samantha Villanueva, is also part of the vehicle team, assisting in recovering the rocket after launch. Villanueva helps the team fulfill NASA’s education outreach requirement for the competition.

“I create the lessons,” Villanueva said. “I create the schedules, activities and the homework, and I organize everything,” referring to the two middle school programs for which Villanueva and the Rocket Owls are responsible. The Junior Rocket Owls of the Glendora Unified School District and the “Rocket Math” program of the Bassett Unified school district in La Puente aren’t the only outreach programs the team has done.

“We also had the Sally Ride Women in Engineering this year, as well we did two outreaches at a shelter in LA.” The former honors the first American female astronaut, providing educational opportunities for inspiring girls to go into science-based careers. The latter was at the Comunidad Cesar Chavez, a shelter for homeless children and their families in East Los Angeles.

“I like showing different kids that they can be capable in STEM,” Villanueva said.

Team payload specialist and computer science major, Angelica Consengco manages the social media presence for the Rocket Owls. According to the 48-page 2019 NASA Student Launch Handbook, maintaining a social media presence is a requirement for competing.

“I wanted to be able to take on a position that would let me give our team an online personality, and keep people updated with what we are doing, in a way that I feel like previous teams may have not before,” Consengco said.

Consengco is unaware of past teams’ social media presence. However, there are incentives that may inspire teams to pursue platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

“There is an award for social media from NASA this year,” Consengco said.

The potential for injury to build a functional rocket and launching one, makes safety necessary. Weston Waggoner, a physics and engineering major, takes his place on the team as safety officer.
“I like how our STEM center is ran here, and I know all our STEM programs, so I have this connection here now,” Waggoner said. “I definitely want to come back even while doing other things.”

The team has adjusted to various setbacks. Some students that join the team in the summer don’t make it to Huntsville in April.

“Weston took over safety. He was originally helping us with the payload but the person who left was safety officer,” Gudino said.

Gudino’s comment reflects the stress of committing to an academic program like the Rocket Owls.

“We had one person that dropped out,” Joseph said. “There is no shame. It’s a very stressful and time-consuming project and in the seven years that the Rocket Owls have been in business, there has been only one year that nobody has dropped out.”

Aside from the stress and dedication required of the members, the academic team’s project requires about $15,000 for the trip to Huntsville, the transportation of the rocket and the team’s educational outreach programs. Some of the costs are offset by donations from the Citrus College Bookstore managed by Eric Magallon.

“I appreciate the support of the college, especially my dean, Dr. Rabitoy. He is supportive and encouraging, helping with the lab room, and all the tools that we need… like the CNC machine, the 3D printer, those are physics department tools,” Riderer said.

Private donors to the academic program include Popla Inc. of Ontario, which is owned by a former student of Riderer.

Another is Citrus College alumnus Martin Gundersen, a physics professor at the University of Southern California. Gundersen gives back to his first school by donating to the team.

Two grants were awarded to the team last year, one from the Mathematical Association of America, the other from the Citrus College Foundation, for the “Women in Engineering Program”.

The California Grant Space Consortium assists Riderer in producing the many grant proposals that must be sent out each year.

The community that surrounds Citrus College, and the strong support for STEM programs ensures the Rocket Owls have the support to keep up with NASA deadlines and participate in the final launch. The team is enabled to give back to the community, inspiring and educating the next generation of STEM students.

“I don’t see how America will stay on top of the world without STEM,” Riderer said.

Next year a new team will take over the reigns of the distinguished program, and it will be in their hands to elevate Citrus College to heights of achievement.