People And Events

St. Andrew's Team
Outside Numerical's plant with the St. Andrews team

Park Ridge Rocketeers Win
Liberty Cannon Award

Numerical Precision honored The St. Andrews Orion Rocket Team from Park Ridge, Illinois, with its coveted Liberty Cannon Award for their performance during NASA's Student Launch Initiative in April at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The award was given to them in a private ceremony at company headquarters on June 10, 2008.

“It was great to hear the engineering behind their increasingly sophisticated aeronautics and rocketry, said Egon Jaeggin, Numerical’s President. The team accurately predicted their entire flight plan. They landed within twenty feet of their target, having achieved lift-off amid strong winds. Additionally, they’re the first student team to ever deploy a separate landing craft to collect soil samples after a safe return to the ground.”

Team leader and mentor Len Johnson spoke of the sheer size and power the new student rocket: “its twice the size (20 feet in length), with three times the power of last year’s mission, he said. Our weight to strength ratio, propulsion and thrust gave us a total impulse strong enough to successfully deploy a more developed payload.”

Team members making presentations to Numerical Precision Employees included Ken Johnson who spoke on rocket design, construction and flight stability; Mike Cinquino who addressed the Pitot Tube for measuring velocity, and the digital video flight recorder; Mike Williamson who presented the recovery system and how its computer driven parachutes deployed for landing; and A.J. Witzke who spoke on the robotics involved in the landing craft and its protective capsule.

“It was a very inspirational day, said Jim Waters, VP General Manger at Numerical Precision. It’s hard to imagine a more enjoyable occasion than to see our sponsorship pay off so well in helping these high school students become successful in their pursuit of science and technology.”

Mr. Jaeggin commented: “We have never seen more worthy candidates for the Liberty Cannon, which was conceived to celebrate special contributions in the field of aerospace. With so many students opting out of mathematics and manufacturing, it’s very rewarding to see their advanced achievements and enthusiasm.”

The Liberty Cannon is the product of a Numerical Precision's Outreach Program for high school students who use Numerical's metalworking tools and aerospace alloys in making a scaled replica of the Napoleon Field Cannon 500, originally used by the colonial army during the revolutionary war.

“We have gone full circle, says Mr. Jaeggin: from the student groups who made this beautiful award, to the extraordinary students who won it .”


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