Gingerbread rocket blasts past competition

SANTA ANA — Ryan Baran-Maguire couldn’t have been that disappointed when his fall science project hit a few bumps. Every time the experiment failed, he got to pig out.

Ryan, a 9-year-old Newport Beach resident, won the “most original” award in the Discovery Science Center’s first Science of Gingerbread competition.

For his piece, Ryan built a 2-foot-tall NASA rocket out of gingerbread and decorated it with Red Vines, marshmallows and other treats. The first time he tried crafting the rocket in the oven, the shape collapsed — which meant that it ended up on his plate, rather than the museum in Santa Ana.

“I think it’s safe to say that Ryan ate the most gingerbread, but I certainly helped,” said his mother, Janine Baran. “We had to, because our first attempt didn’t work. It was delicious.”

When Ryan and his family finally succeeded in constructing a perfect rocket, they sprayed it with varnish, which somewhat negated the possibility of feasting. Still, the Waldorf School of Orange County student got to be a recognized artist for the first time — and it was a remarkable achievement for two reasons. First, by Ryan’s own admission, he did the project “just for fun.” Second, he beat out 18 contenders for the blue ribbon — some of them adults.

For the gingerbread competition, the center brought in a panel of judges from the community. Ryan’s project was also nominated for the Youth Prize, but to everyone’s surprise he ended up shining in an all-ages category.

“They just really loved the fact that it was so different from the rest of them,” said Julie Smith, the center’s public relations manager.

Ryan’s design features a rocket landing on an alien planet, with ice cream cones for jagged rocks, marshmallows for aliens and green-dyed coconut for grass. He got the idea from Eleanor Cameron’s book “The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet” and opted to base the display on the most recent page he read.

“We got to a point where they just met two creatures or something on the planet,” Ryan said.