TARC 2014 Finals Results

Trip Barber has sent out the 2014 TARC Finals Results. The results can be found in the first attachment.

View attachment TARC 2014 Finals Results.pdf

View attachment TARC 2015 Contest Rules.pdf

View attachment TARC Publicity Handout.pdf

Just got back from the finals. Rain notwithstanding at the end of the day, it was - as usual, an absolutely wonderful event. I was on the demo team and mother nature put a bullet in our plans for the 4PM flights. Oh well, I have 2 prepped for NYPOWER. If you have never been, you should add a trip to TARC as a range volunteer to your rocketry bucket list. Watching all those wonderful young folks compete is an absolute blast!

H_Rocket said:

Watching all those wonderful young folks compete is an absolute blast!

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What he said.

I have no idea where they were from or how we'll they did but one team had an absolutely brilliant idea. They used a flight computer to analyze their rockets performance and decide how many A10 motors to fire to hit the altitude in real time in flight!

TARC is the most fun you can have doing rocket stuff without flying anything yourself.

As an add on Karen (CATO-Chutes) had the opportunity to fly in the morning salvo to kick things off. Here is the on board video. This is particularly cool as if you look real carefully during the first two seconds you can actually see the second rocket following along (bright red dot in the top center). If you can do a step through it is really neat to watch.

TARC 2014 OPENING SALVO FLIGHT

Just read the 2015 rules. They have a different set of time/altitude targets for the 2nd round of Nationals than the 1st or qualification rounds. Very interesting.

Qualification/1st round: 46-48 seconds, 800'
2nd round: 45-47 seconds, 775'

OMG - I can see myself at the 16 second mark! At least I think it's me

H_Rocket said:

As an add on Karen (CATO-Chutes) had the opportunity to fly in the morning salvo to kick things off. Here is the on board video. This is particularly cool as if you look real carefully during the first two seconds you can actually see the second rocket following along (bright red dot in the top center). If you can do a step through it is really neat to watch.

TARC 2014 OPENING SALVO FLIGHT

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Glad to see that David Douglas (Oregon) took the Creativity prize. I saw their rocket before they left for Nationals, and I loved their solution to the problem of the fins breaking that they had experienced the year before.

billspad said:

I have no idea where they were from or how we'll they did but one team had an absolutely brilliant idea. They used a flight computer to analyze their rockets performance and decide how many A10 motors to fire to hit the altitude in real time in flight!.

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Vanguard School from Colorado. As I understood it, the A10s were fired based on the thrust produced by the F-motor sustainer--if the F underperformed, the computer fired the As to make up the difference. It was a very interesting approach.

CZ Brat said:

Qualification/1st round: 46-48 seconds, 800'
2nd round: 45-47 seconds, 775'

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So now you have to tune the rocket for 800' and then figure out how to reliably take 25' off that. (Adjustable drag tabs, maybe?) Or do you shoot for 787.5 (accepting 12 or 13 points for altitude) and reef the parachute on the second flight to reduce the time?

Too bad my youngest son is graduating--I'd like to see how they solve that one.