Battle of the Rockets

The team of nine students from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) collectively held their breath during the countdown. The result of their yearlong project-an 11-fttall, 60-lb rocket-stood on the launchpad, holding an autonomous soi l-col lect ing robot they had designed. There was little doubt the engines would ignite, developing 450 lbf of thrust within 200 ms; their worry was whether the robot would eject at apogee and survive the resulting 1,000-ft fall.