![\"Peter](\"http:\/\/rocketsnw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/Peter-with-Speed-Freak.jpg\" "\\"Peter")
<\/a><\/strong>\nNAR 88218 L2<\/strong><\/p>\n
Peter is a science teacher at Seattle\u2019s Ingraham High School, home of the three-peat Washington State TARC Champions (2007, 2008, 2009), and the 2009 Pacific Northwest Regional TARC Champions.\u00a0 He is the Lead Advisor for the\u00a0newly established Ingraham Aerospace Sciences Academy (IASA).<\/p>\n
\u00a0Peter built a wide variety of Estes kit rockets as an elementary and middle schooler, then started experimenting with designing his own while in high school.\u00a0 His launch record got a little spotty while in college, then shut down entirely due to lack of funds and time while in graduate school, but he kept and displayed all his venerable old models with every intention of flying them once again once he escaped with his degree.\u00a0 Once he started teaching and had both time and a paycheck, the models came out and the flying started up again.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Peter\u2019s introduction to mid-power flight came in 2006, when a flyer for TARC landed in his mailbox at work.\u00a0 On a whim, he decided to see if there were any kids at Ingraham High School who were interested in building rockets.\u00a0 About a dozen kids showed up and formed a team, and the rest is history.\u00a0 The students went through all kinds of black powder motors before they decided that they needed an Aerotech F20 motor for their TARC rocket that year and Peter got his first whiff of APCP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0It was love at first launch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0The team came very close in 2006-07, but failed to qualify for nationals in their first year, but the seeds were sewn for big things to come.\u00a0 Throughout the process, Peter found that the hardest thing for him was the TARC rule about \u201cNo adult interference\u201d\u2026he was definitely going to need to find himself a side project to keep him out of the students\u2019 way\u2026.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The second year of the program, Peter and his students decided to delve into the wonderful world of reloadable motors.\u00a0 Once Peter and the students got their hands on an Aerotech catalog and started to see the thrust curves for all those high power motors, he knew what he had to do.\u00a0 During 2007-08, the team qualified for Nationals, finishing a very healthy 29th<\/sup> on their first venture to the Great Meadow.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Meanwhile, to keep himself from meddling with\u00a0the students and their TARC rocket, Peter started reading up on High Power certification and dreaming about what he wanted to build.\u00a0 In September of 2008, Peter took a small group of IASA students to the BMR Rolling Thunder launch in Dayton, WA\u2014He was packing an overbuilt LOC Vulcanite, and he wasn\u2019t afraid to use it.\u00a0 On his first attempt to get his L1 cert, his parachute stuffed up in the airframe, but the rocket was undamaged, so on his second attempt (using \u201cjust a little more\u2026no\u2026a little more than that\u201d BP in his motor charge\u2014just to be sure, you understand) his laundry came out for a successful flight. \u00a0Meanwhile, his students were accomplishing great things on their own\u2014qualifying all three TARC teams for Nationals in 2009.\u00a0 At the finals, Team Alpha (the seniors) had a critical pad malfunction that robbed them of altitude and dropped them into 66th<\/sup> place.\u00a0 Team Bravo finished tantalizingly close to the top 20, but came up just short.\u00a0 Team Charlie, the youngest and smallest team, had an amazing day and finished in 7th<\/sup> place overall.<\/p>\n
\nPeter spent most of the winter of 2008-09 keeping himself from meddling with his students\u2019 TARC rockets by slowly designing, planning, and constructing his own scratch rocket for his L2.\u00a0 \u00a0He debuted the 6.5 foot long, 4\u201d diameter vehicle at the WAC Spring Tune-up launch in April of 2009.\u00a0 Inexplicably, he left out the screws to hold the nose cone in place and had to refly his L2 attempt as a result of an unplanned \u201cseparate nosecone re-entry\u201d.<\/p>\n