Four Sandia interns mentored eight high school students from throughout New Mexico who participated in this year’s Model Rocket Design and Telemetry project at the 2019 Joint Science and Technology Institute residential STEM camp in June.

The two-week event, hosted for the first time in New Mexico by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, enables high school students to participate in projects mentored by research scientists and engineers from Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.

“We mentored a group of eight students who completed a research project on rocket design and telemetry,” Sandia intern Skyler Valdez said. Skyler, joined by year-round Sandia R&D interns Duncan Madden, Collin Lockemer and Robert Stroud, built rockets with students in teams and launched them at Balloon Fiesta Park.

The DOE Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facilitates a variety of scientific initiatives by placing students and scholars in organizations seeking interim expertise. The institute strives to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM fields, increase STEM literacy and expose students to the importance of STEM through hands-on, relevant research.