Team America Rocketry Contest Finalists Named

From today's Aerospace Industry Association press release:

Teams Will Meet in Fly-Off May 21

Arlington, Va. – The stage is set for a fiery showdown of the top teams in the Team America Rocketry Challenge after AIA announced the 100 finalists Friday.

The teams will meet for a final fly-off on May 21 at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va. for the title. It is the third year AIA and its partners are putting on the world’s largest model rocket contest. A list of the finalists is available at www.rocketcontest.org.

A total of 712 teams from 49 states and the District of Columbia – and even an American middle school in Germany – took part in the preliminary round of the competition. That represented close to 10,000 middle and high school students.

AIA President and CEO John W. Douglass said interest in the contest shows it is succeeding in reaching out to middle and high school students.

“We are excited to see the enthusiasm surrounding TARC and look forward to another great final day of competition,’’ Douglass said.

This year’s competition tasks students with launching a one- or two-stage rocket and having it fly for exactly 60 seconds. The payload of one or two raw eggs must return safely to the earth, and each flight receives a score according to performance and weighted for the number of stages and eggs. Teams had until last week to send in preliminary scores to see if they made the finals, which features schools from 28 states.

AIA created the contest two years ago as a one-time event to mark the 100th anniversary of flight, but overwhelming interest turned it into an annual event. The goal is to promote aerospace to students to attract more young people to careers in the industry. The contest is also sponsored by the National Association of Rocketry in partnership with NASA, the American Association of Physics Teachers and 34 AIA member companies. The winning teams share a prize pool of $60,000 in savings bonds and cash. NASA also provides top-performing teams with grants for students to build more advanced rockets and for teachers to attend workshops and meet space program engineers.

For more information about AIA’s Team America Rocketry Challenge, including details on how to sponsor a high school team and to apply for press credentials to attend the finals, visit www.rocketcontest.org.

Mookie and I will be attending again as volunteers. We've worked all three (they hold the finals at our home field), and it's fun and exciting to see the various ways that the student teams solve the challenging task they're given.

Spectators welcome.