KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — A junior at Kalamazoo College brought home a pair of gold medals from a world rocketry event in Ukraine.
Team USA member Emma Kristal won top individual and team honors in precision payload categories at the World Championships for Space Models event in August.
“You have to get your rocket as close to 300 meters as possible and it has to stay in the air for as close as 60 seconds as possible,” Kristal said. “Your rocket actually carries an egg in it for each of the three rounds and you have to not break your egg for all three rounds.”
Krystal, who has set 10 national model rocketry records, has been taking part in the hobby since fifth grade.
“My dad had done it as a kid, and there was finally a national competition in Michigan and he kind of asked me to come along,” Kristal said. “So, I went to that and I won a gold there and set a national record.”
“I’ve been doing it pretty much every single year since then,” Kristal said. “I started doing the international competitions in 2010.”
The psychology and biology double major and native of Royal Oak plans to try out for the national team again this summer.
