John Pugh MP encourages schools to go sky high with national rocketry competition

Southport’s MP John Pugh has encouraged local schools to take part in the UK’s largest youth model rocket competition, the UK Rocketry Challenge.

John Pugh joined the 2015 and 2016 winning teams in Parliament earlier this week, and learned all about the competition, and what Southport schools can do to win this year.

The competition involves designing, building and launching a model rocket, with the aim of ensuring its passenger (a raw egg) remains intact throughout launch and landing. The rocket much reach 775 feet and must fly for between 41-43 seconds.

The national final champions win an all-expenses paid trip to Paris, to represent the UK in a fly off against teams from the USA, Japan and France at the Paris International Airshow in June 2017.

John Pugh said: “Competitions like this are a great chance for students to apply what they learn in the classroom into practise.

“I hope that local schools in Southport will consider taking part in the UK Youth Rocketry Challenge, who knows, maybe the students building rockets in this competition could end up working on our next space mission!”