Hasta La Gadget!

Today, in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, eight high school students from the California Academy for Math and Sciences will attempt to put a 29-foot, 500-pound rocket into orbit, using the skills they picked up in an crash course in rocketry and a 17-inch Sony Vaio CW and F-series laptops with Intel Core i5 and i7 processors under the hood.

The operation is called The Rocket Project, a collaboration sponsored by Sony and Intel to give high school students proficient and dedicated to math, science, and technology the opportunity to put a rocket into orbit. The catch is that the students had only 60 days to design, build, and launch it. The students were ready to launch at the 60 day mark, but weather conditions delayed the launch. Today the students will try again, with clear weather and the approval of the FAA. If the launch goes well, amateur astronomers and radio operators will be able to see the satellite and pick up its radio signal in-orbit, and the students that launched the rocket will have eternal bragging rights.