Mistletoe Missiles: Yellow Jackets Rebekah Geil (right) and Cameron Ragan (left) took home the first-place prize in the Discovery Channel’s rocketry competition show.

Geil is a member of the USLI rocket team and conducts research in the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL) with research engineer, Selcuk Cimtalay.

Georgia Tech aerospace engineering undergrad Rebekah Geil and industrial design student Cameron Ragan won Discovery Channel’s inaugural “Rocket Around the Christmas Tree” competition show.

The show hosts three new teams of Santa’s supersonic rocketeers as they battle it out in a series of three unique challenges.

Each team is given two hours to design and launch their rocket, but only one team gets a spot in the finals for a chance to win the coveted golden Christmas-tree tree topper.

Geil and Ragan’s team – The Jingle Bellas – made their debut on episode two.

Though the Jingle Bellas didn’t walk away with the first-place prize that episode, they had some memorable launches (see for yourself) and were asked to return to compete in the finals.

The final showdown included teams “Rocking with the Fletchers,” a husband and wife team of aerospace engineers from Texas, and “Snow It Alls,” a father-daughter team of mechanical engineers from Ohio.

The Jingle Bellas came out victorious and have bragging rights that they beat two teams of actual practicing engineers (not to mention they made it onto Santa’s nice list).  

Congratulations, Rebekah and Cameron!