Shockwave In Social Isolation

By Nicole Maxwell, Alamogordo Daily News

The Alamogordo High School Shockwave Team is usually fresh of their rocket sled test at the Holloman High Speed Test Track (HHSTT) this time of year.

But the test was canceled as COVID-19 coronavirus restrictions were put in place to keep people from getting sick.

The Shockwave team has not been active since the state Public Education Department closed public schools due to COVID-19.

“We were at the point where we were doing more hands-on things and being at the base so we didn’t have the opportunity too continue much once we fgured out how life was going to be,” Alamogordo High School (AHS) Military Community Liaison Teresa Ferenczhalmy said.

Shockwave is a STEM team that gives students hands-on experience with things such as engineering, practical physics and more.

The students made carbon dioxide cars that they race each year that were made out of wood designed for speed.

They also designed a rocket sled to be tested at HHSTT each spring. This year, the test was supposed to happen April 29.

Alamogordo High School Shockwave Team in a HHSTT shop during open house in 2019. (PHOTO: DWIGHT HARP/ U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO)

Prior to the rocket sled test, the students were going to go back out to Holloman Air Force Base to watch the sled being fabricated, John Leslie of HHSTT said.

“So they could see the machine shock in action, welders in action and we were going to piggyback this efort to check out some new instrumentation capabilities,” Leslie said.

Leslie was also going to show the students about all of the possibilities within science and technology should engineering or physics not turn out to be their specialty.

These include being a project manager, fnance manager, technical writing, data engineering and more.

The Alamogordo Daily News spoke

to three Shockwave members via Google Meeting. All three students are planning on going into STEM majors in college.

“We’d been doing, like, the lessons and stuf in the classroom and we were actually learning some of the stuf but we never actually got to use that,” AHS Senior Bryson Kangas said.

Since about mid-March school has been out of the traditional classroom and into the home for an extended Spring Break into virtual learning until the end of the school year.

“It’s been really weird for sure– the online stuf– a little upsetting, too,” Kangas said. “Just like that seeing everybody and not doing all of the activities we’ve been doing.”

Nicole Maxwell can be contacted by email at nmaxwell@ alamogordonews.com, by phone at 575-415-6605 or on twitter at @ nicmaxreporter.