26 Jan Stephen Metcalfe MP encourages students in Basildon and Thurrock to take part in the UK Youth Rocketry Challenge 2024
Stephen Metcalfe, MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, is encouraging 11- to 18-year-olds interested in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) to enter the UK’s largest youth rocketry competition – the UK Youth Rocketry Challenge (UKROC).
Registered teams will be able to compete against other students in the region for a place in the national finals in June 2024 where the national champions will be crowned.
Last year, the national champions of UKROC went on to win the International Rocketry Challenge at the Paris Air Show 2023 – a brilliant achievement. In 2024, the UK’s national champions will win an all-expenses-paid trip to Farnborough, to represent the UK in a fly-off against international teams from the USA, Japan, and France at the 2024 edition of Farnborough International Airshow.
UKROC involves the design, build, and launch of a model rocket, with the payload of one raw egg representing the astronauts. The rocket must get closest to at least 820 feet in altitude within a goal timeframe of 43-46 seconds and the ‘astronaut’ must remain intact throughout the launch and landing.
Rules governing the competition are altered each year to encourage innovative thinking amongst participants and ensure previous designs can’t be repeated.
UKROC is a great life experience through which young people can gain practical insight into how STEM subjects are used by the aerospace, defence, security and space sectors which support more than 1 million jobs across the country and provide high-wage and high-skilled careers that boost local economies and communities. It also provides impressive CV experience for aspiring young scientists.
Stephen Metcalfe, MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, said:
“The UK Youth Rocketry Challenge provides 11- to 18-year-olds with a unique opportunity to work together and put into practice key skills in engineering and physics, inspiring and paving the way for them to become the future engineers and scientists our country needs.
The Rocketry Challenge is one-of-a-kind and a great hands-on learning opportunity for 11-18-year-olds and a lot of fun. Anyone who is an aspiring astronaut, physicist, engineer, or scientist, should enter this competition to gain invaluable experience.
I hope local schools in South Basildon and East Thurrock take part in the competition, and I look forward to supporting and cheering them on as they reach for the stars.”
