I have been dieing to put together a Team america team for a long time. How do I go about this? How do we raise money for the team ? Thats just a couple questions I have. Any and all answers or sugestions would be great
LS,
I am a high school teacher who sponsored three TARC teams this year, one of which placed #32 in the nation during this year's finals, so perhaps I can help you out a little bit from the teacher's point of view.
First, go to the TARC web site:
https://www.rocketcontest.org/ and start looking around. You'll find some writeups about the contest, including:
(1) The 2007-2008 Rules:
https://www.rocketcontest.org/pdf/2008_rules.pdf
(2) The 2007-2008 Application:
https://www.rocketcontest.org/pdf/application_2008.pdf
(3) The Mentors List:
https://www.rocketcontest.org/pdf/mentors.pdf and
(4) The Team Handbook:
https://www.rocketcontest.org/pdf/handbook_2008.pdf
Once you've read those, you'll have the answers to a lot of your questions, questions you don't even know you have, yet.
But, to get you started... after you have downloaded those documents and printed them out, put them in a loose-leaf binder. You're going to need them to convince three people that you know what you're talking about:
(a) your principal, who's going to have to approve of this activity. You're going to be representing your school, officially, and doing so with materials that could be considered hazardous. You need his/her help in this!
(b) a teacher or school staff member that will sponsor you. The sponsor plays a very important role in the TARC contest - he/she is the official liaison between you and the contest sponsors AND you and your parents in matters of the contest. It's best if you find a teacher that's into rocketry, as I was before I started sponsoring the teams at my school, but that's not absolutely necessary since you're going to involve a third person. Ask your science or technology teachers, if you don't already have someone in mind.
(c) a NAR mentor. The NAR mentor is usually a member of your local rocketry club who's willing, usually, to do anything from coming out each week to meet with you and your team members to teach you everything you need to know about rocketry in order to come up with a good design, to being there when you fly your qualification flights. In fact, you HAVE TO have two senior (over 18) NAR members as observers during the qualification flight. So, if you have a local club and someone there who wants to work with the TARC teams, you're good to go.
Once you've got all three of those folks on board, and have been recruiting other members of the team (you must have at least three members to register, and no more than 15 members per team). At our school, we had enough kids interested that we put together three teams... one, an all-girls team (they're the ones who went to the finals!) and two all-boys teams, one was called The Varsity - they had a couple of guys who were already rocket fliers - and the other was our Junior Varsity - guys who hadn't done this before. Al told, we had 15 people split between the three teams.
Registration begins right after Labor Day and, if it hasn't changed, costs $90 per team. You have to pay that up front, so begin thinking about coming up with some money soon. Last year, I paid the registration out of my pocket. This year, the teams members will have to cough it up in order to play.
We were very lucky that a couple of our parents provided the funding for all three teams through their businesses. We wound up spending about $1200 for all three teams to build and fly their rockets through the qualification flight, and for the girls to build a backup and fly quite a few orientation flights prior to the finals.
Most other teams I talked with spent anywhere from $350-$600 per team building rockets, flying them (F and G motors start getting expensive at $15 a flight!). And, at the finals, an informal survey showed that teams that got into the finals usually flew their rockets 10-15 times to get the consistency they needed. There were exceptions, of course, so your mileage may vary. I think we wound up building a total of 8 rockets and flew a total of 25-30 flights, so that might give you an idea of what's going to be in your future.
The finals are held in Manassas, Virginia, in the middle of May. The contest is on a Saturday, with Sunday being the back-up in case of rain. You would need to provide transportation for you and your rockets/motors (you can't take motors or igniters on the plane with you so they have to be shipped) and a couple of days in the motel. Again, we lucked out this year in that our school provided the complete funding for our team, plus me and a chaperon, to fly to Washington DC and compete, and have a little bit of civics lessons time in the Baltimore/Washington area. But, it's something that you need to plan on, since the whole idea is to get to the finals where you have a chance at the money, scholarships, and, oh yeah.. the winning team has an invite to either the Paris Air Show or the Farnsborough Air Show - the winner this year, a team from NC, is headed to England for the show this month.
That should get you started - be SURE AND TALK WITH YOUR PRINCIPAL as soon as possible. You gotta have his/her help, especially if you don't already have a teacher to sponsor you.
As always, when you have questions...... feel free to ask.
Good luck, and hope to see you in Virginia next May!
