Head's Newsletter 14 July 2022

TIFFIN ROCKET SOCIETY

A lot has happened during the 1 year the Tiffin Rocketry Society has existed. Having started from humble beginnings making rockets from plastic tubing and water bottles, in 2021 we became the first group of students from Tiffin to reach the National Finals of the UKROC Youth Rocketry Challenge. Whilst the finals ended in disappointment after a catastrophic mid - air explosion, we left undetered and set about redesigning a vastly improved rocket for 2022. Despite taking place just weeks before our A - Level exams, our extremely dedicated team found time to travel to the South East Regional Finals. It was here where we first realised our true potential when, even after a parachute failure, we achieved two near - perfect launches which placed us 1st in our region against 16 other teams. Post - A - Levels, we had under a week to build a new rocket before the 2022 national finals at BMFA Buckminster. Although we arrived 2 hours late thanks to a road prpblem, the team immediately impressed officials with our presentation and a launch which took us to the top of the scoreboard in round one. With this excellent launch under our belt, we went into the top three shootout nervous and excited. Our second launch was even better than the first and got us 1.47 seconds off the target flight time, but in spite of this, we were eclipsed by just 1.41 seconds.

Nevertheless, the whole team - Asher, Jasper, Rubiayat, Atish, Ian and Ivan - helped by many others along the way have done an incredible job, beating all odds to make it this far. Through sheer determination we were able to achieve incredible results. We ’ d like to thank Mr Holt who provided us with the opportunity to build rockets. We owe our success to him and are honoured that we could be the first of his students to make it this far in the competition. Whilst we are all now leaving to start an exciting new chapter in our lives, we hope this is just the beginning of rocketry at Tiffin. The leadership baton is being passed on to Georgiy Lesyuk in Year 12 who will continue to work on building more rockets. Hopefully one day Mr Holt will find a group of students as committed as us who will take the school one step further to the International Finals. Until then, our trophy will sit proudly on display at school as a reminder of what unwavering resilience can achieve and where it got the Tiffin Rocketry Society.