While most people spent New Year’s Eve watching the big ball fall in New York on Dick Clark’s special, eight Iowa State students were doing a little falling of their own.

And if you ask the eight members of the ISU skydiving club who participated in the collegiate national competition from Dec. 27 through Jan. 2, they’ll tell you it was a little more exciting.

Three members of ISU’s team competed at the event, while the other five took part in “fun jumping,” which included stunts utilizing Hoola Hoops and cameras.

One of the fun jumpers was club president, Rob Meyer, who also tried out a new craze called “sit flying.”

The three members who took part in the competition were graduate student Eric Sharkness, and sophomores Ken Reed and James Leatherby.

Reed placed fourth in the accuracy competition in the novice division, while he and Sharkness teamed up to take sixth in the two-way event.

“It was fun and challenging,” Reed said of his experiences. “I enjoyed it and got a lot of training. That’s what I was looking for.”

Reed began skydiving last spring and jumped 71 times before the competition.

Reed said he was just going down to Florida to get the experience as a first-time competitor and did not anticipate placing in the top five.

Reed said he enjoyed both types of competition — the individual effort and the challenges of teamwork.

He and Sharkness had only jumped together a few times two months ago and had not expected to do as well as they did at nationals.

“We were out there to have fun and it turned out to be very beneficial for us. We were very excited to get sixth,” he said. “I’ll definitely be there again next year.”

Reed said he will eclipse the 100-jump mark in the next year and therefore will move up into the intermediate level at the next national competition.

Meyer said although the weather wasn’t perfect for skydiving, each person was able to complete about 15 jumps from three different drop zones in several types of aircrafts.

One difference for the divers was the altitude from which they dove. The club normally jumps near Boone from around 8,500 feet.

However, over break the ISU men leaped from heights between 13,000 and 14,000 feet. That height allows for 60-65 seconds of free fall time, Meyer said.

“This was a pretty big trip,” Meyer said. “We had a good time.”