In the effort to prove to the world that their design was as good as any, UCT’s INCFD group went on to pretty much show off. Just a little. After improving on their design of the Ascension II which failed to even take off last year December, Ascension III managed to hit new heights. Smashing the world record of 623 metres that stood for eight years, Ascension III managed to reach 830 metres. How’s that for a little bit of physics badassery.

The previous record was set by US Water Rockets and the achievement was ratified by Water Rocket Achievement World Record Association on Wednesday.

The rocket that was created by the team was 2.68 metres with a computer controller weighing in at 1.5kg. The rocket achieved 550km/h in 0.5 seconds.

The water rocket was designed and built by the group led by Prof Arnaud Malan and project leader Stuart Swan. They were assisted by group members Donovan Changfoot and William Liw. Powered only by water and compressed air, there’s so much more to the whole project. Prof arnaud explained the following:

The competition is truly multidisciplinary in nature and requires pushing state-of-the-art technology in areas ranging from mechanical design and lean manufacture to computer-based mathematical modelling. It is like the Olympics of water rocketry and pits us against the best and brightest in the world. Clearly, we are now the undisputed best of the best.