The Citrus College Rocket Owls earned first place for STEM engagement and third place in the social media category in the NASA Student Launch Competition on April 6. The competition takes place every year at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Rocket Owls have represented Citrus College annually since the team’s creation in 2012. The team members change every year, allowing new students to take up the reigns.
The team this year has achieved nationwide recognition for themselves and Citrus College. The first place spot in each category is vied for by the 44 teams that take part in the NASA program.
The STEM engagement award is “presented to the team that best informed others about rocketry and other space-related topics,” said the NASA website about the project winners, while the social media award is “presented to the college or university team that has the most active and creative social media presence throughout the project year.”
Among the 44 teams that took part, Citrus College was one of only two community colleges competing nationwide. The other 42 teams were from universities and colleges with the resources and budgets of four-year institutions, such as Vanderbilt University of Nashville, Tennessee, and the United States Naval Academy of Annapolis, Maryland. While some teams had members numbering in the double digits, the Citrus College Rocket Owls spread the burden of the competition across the shoulders of six students.
Citrus College students Fadi Joseph, Ivette Ayala, Samantha Villanueva, Weston Waggoner, Angelica Consengco and Marco Gudino made up the team. Each member was a student of Lucia Riderer, a physics professor at Citrus College. Riderer was responsible for determining which students would be a good fit for the team based on their own interest and academic achievement.
The trip to Huntsville represented the culmination of the team’s work since summer 2018, when the preliminary stages of the project began. Part of this work is the STEM engagement for which they were honored with the category first place prize, as well as their social media presence which informed the Citrus College community and others about their progress.
“The amount of outreach we did was one factor,” Joseph said about his team’s success, “We did 26 total events. That includes the Junior Rocket Owls in collaboration with the Glendora Unified School District, as well as the ‘3…2…1…BLAST OFF!’ program with Bassett Unified School District.”
These programs involve the Rocket Owls demonstrating electronic circuits, and other technology and science projects for middle and high school students.
In addition, Joseph said the week-long physics camp the team had organized and led on Citrus College’s campus likely had contributed to his team’s success. Participants were Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) students from Glendora Unified School District.
“Once you’re doing it, you don’t think about awards,” Joseph said about his team’s education outreach.
The list of STEM engagement efforts the Rocket Owls undertook does not end there.
The female members of the team, along with the Citrus College Women in Engineering program, secured a grant from the Citrus College Foundation to support the college’s Sally Ride Program, Riderer said. Riderer serves as the faculty advisor for both the Rocket Owls and the Women in Engineering.
The name of the program refers to astronaut Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space in 1983.
The program centers on enhancing female student retention in engineering prerequisites, as well as increasing the number of female students pursuing engineering degrees and careers, with a focus on aerospace engineering, the Women in Engineering Sally Ride Program website said.
The website said that female college students participating in the program are engaged in aerospace-focused outreach activities for elementary and middle school girls enrolled in the Glendora Unified School District.
