{"id":80945,"date":"2018-06-14T10:30:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T20:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=80945"},"modified":"2020-03-05T15:39:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T01:39:30","slug":"indigenous-kapiolani-student-rocket-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/06\/14\/indigenous-kapiolani-student-rocket-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous Kapi\u02bbolani CC<\/abbr> students win big in national rocket competition"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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From left: Kahikimaianakekupulaniokalaʻakea<\/span> Lauolefiso “Laʻa<\/span>” Aliʻifua<\/span>, Mikayla Shankles, Kayla Valera, Leiolani Malagon-Leon, Li-Anne Delavega, Alan Toetuʻu<\/span> Tupou.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five students from Kapiʻolani<\/span> Community College\u2019s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math<\/a> (STEM<\/abbr>) program on the team, K\u016blia i ka Nuʻu<\/span>, won second place in the First Nations Launch National Rocket Competition<\/a> in April. The Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, which sponsors the competition, released the results on June 1.<\/p>\n

The First Nations Launch program invites student teams from tribal colleges and American Indian Society of Engineering student chapters from across the country to design, build and fly a competition rocket. As a tribal college, Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr> students were challenged to build a “true scale” model that closely approximates the design of a current or retired rocket or missile.<\/p>\n

Team K\u016blia i ka Nuʻu<\/span><\/h2>\n

The five students from Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr> who flew to Kansasville, Wisconsin, for the competition were team leader Alan Toetuʻu<\/span> Tupou, Leiolani Malagon-Leon, Kayla Valera, Kahikimaianakekupulaniokalaʻakea<\/span> Lauolefiso “Laʻa<\/span>” Aliʻifua<\/span><\/strong> and Mikayla Shankles<\/strong>. All are pre-engineering students, and most are of Tongan, Native Hawaiian or Native American ethnic backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Said Tupou, “The competition taught me technical skills like fabrication and computer design. But I also learned soft skills such as public speaking, leadership, teamwork and time management. I feel the entire experience is preparing me for the workplace as I move closer toward my career in engineering.”<\/p>\n

Faculty advisors for the team were Herve Collin<\/strong> and Aaron Hanai<\/strong>. Li-Anne Delavega<\/strong>, engineering coordinator, provided logistics support during the entire journey. Geena Noelani Wann-Kung<\/strong>, a senior studying electrical engineering at the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa, served as a peer mentor.<\/p>\n

Big winners<\/h2>\n

Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr>\u2019s students built a replica of the Black Brant II<\/abbr>. The rocket flew 2,977 feet, and their simulation only had a 0.168 percent margin of error.<\/p>\n

There was a difference of two points between the overall first-place winners and Kapiʻolani<\/span> CC<\/abbr>\u2019s second-place team. Team K\u016blia i ka Nuʻu<\/span> was awarded a $1,000 cash prize. The team also placed second for written reports, third for flight and emerged first in oral presentation. In addition, the team won the Judge\u2019s Choice and Team Spirit awards.<\/p>\n

Ninety-three students participated in the program, representing 19 colleges and universities from 11 states.<\/p>\n

—By Louise Yamamoto<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First Nations Launch program invites student teams from tribal colleges and American Indian Society of Engineering student chapters to design, build and fly a competition rocket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[63,313,660],"class_list":["post-80945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-kapiolani-community-college","tag-stem","tag-student-recognition","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80945"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112573,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80945\/revisions\/112573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}