One major conflict in October Sky is the chances of Sonny, the main character, achieving his dreams of becoming an engineer. One asset of this conflict evolves from the fact that he lives in a small mining town where most men work in the coal mines. The only way most kids got out and went to college was from football scholarships. Sonny wasn't good at football, so he had to work hard to obtain the only scholarships from a science fair, if he won.