Sony’s Rocket Project helps students reach the stratosphere, unloads some Vaios in the process (video)

We’ve seen plenty of cockamamie rocket stunts in our day, but there are still few things cooler than an amateur project that reaches for the stars. To this end (and for some free advertising) Sony’s announced the imaginatively named Rocket Project, wherein eight high school science students will be selected to receive Vaio CW-series laptops which they’ll then use to design and build a twenty-five feet tall, 500 pound rocket capable of reaching the stratosphere (at least theoretically). Qualifying designs must also incorporate a Vaio Z-Series (Intel Core i5) laptop to control the rocket, and a Vaio F-Series (Intel Core i7) as mission control for the launch. As Tom Atchison, Director of the Association of Rocket Mavericks puts it, “the laptops from Sony and Intel have more computational processing power than some of the first spacecraft to reach the Moon. But can a Sony Vaio laptop launch a rocket? That is what this extraordinary group of high school students is going to find out, and I am very excited to give them an accelerated course in rocketry and the unique hands-on experience of building something capable of blasting off into space.” Sounds great — now, how about a similar project for embittered bloggers? PR after the break.