Team America Rocketry Challenge 2005

[Trip Barber]

Team America Rocketry Challenge 2005 is now completed. We flew the finals on Saturday, May 21 in perfect springtime weather at the beautiful Great Meadow Outdoor Center in The Plains, VA. 100 teams (with 520 student team members present) from 29 states competed and flew. 79 of them had fully successful, qualified flights. The top 3 teams all achieved durations within 1 second of the 60 second target. The winner was Dakota Couty 4-H Federation, from Farmington, Minnesota, with a duration of 59.9 seconds. Second place went to Plantation High School (Team 4) of Plantation, FL, with a duration of 59.8 seconds.

The flyoff results are posted as a .pdf file in the "files" section
of the NARTARC Yahoo Group, and will be posted on the
www.rocketcontest.org website next week, along with photographs of every team, and many photographs of the finals. Some of you may have seen the excellent coverage the event (and our hobby) received on the NBC "Today Show" Sunday morning, May 22.

Team America Rocketry Challenge 2006 registration will open in early September. To receive notifications on this event, be sure to sign up at the www.rocketcontest.org website. We are still working on the specific challenge that will be used in TARC 2006; it will not be identical to 2005, and we will announce it once the details are worked out.

My thanks to all of you who participated in TARC 2005, either as
local "mentors" who worked so hard to get the 270 teams (of the 712 who entered TARC 2005) through the qualification process and/or as one of the 90 NAR range crew that did such an outstanding job running the finals. And a special thanks to the Aerospace Industries Association and the 34 AIA member aerospace companies who provided the financing and staff to run TARC in a very professional manner.

TARC is all about getting young people interested in aerospace
careers and in flying rockets. It has done a great job of both. It
is a pleasure to be associated with an event of this national scope
and impact. We are making a difference in America's future through what we do in TARC.

We need lots of local NAR mentors and section support to make TARC work. If any of your who are not already signed up as "mentors", or local coaches available to recruit and support local teams, would like to add your name to the list, please contact me at <[email protected]>.

Trip Barber
NAR 4322
NAR Vice President and TARC Manager

 

[thomasrau]

Trip,

Thank you for providing me the chance to pay forward at such a wonderful event. It was a great event and the teams once again impressed me. Those young men and women were an absolute pleasure to deal with.

To all NAR members that haven't yet participated in TARC, please consider it for 2006. The work is minimal and the rewards great. There wasn't a single volunteer there (myself included) that didn't have a great time. Those young men and women at the competition were a joy to watch and help.

 

[jcsalem]

The Acton-Boxborough (Mass.) team along with their parents, siblings and their mentor (me!) had a fabulous time at TARC2005. The launch day weather was beautiful, everything was extremely well run and there were inspiring talks by astronauts and others. The warmth and professionalism of the entire event staff and volunteers was stunning.

I think the main message of the event was best summed up by one of the NASA representatives when she said to the assembled students that "there is a place for each of you at NASA", and that with enough passion and drive you can accomplish anything.

Unfortunately, the A-B team's rocket did not fair so well. After a perfect flight up, the shock cord separated from the egg capsule -- splat! But this disappointment led to my favorite moment of the day when the team lead, David, his hands still covered with egg said to me "Well, I still have four more years!"

I was very proud of the A-B team. They learned a huge amount over the past months, pressed on through many challenges, and handled both success and failure well. The most important lessons were less about rocketry and more about teamwork and problem solving. Probably the toughest challenge the A-Bers faced was finding a reasonable-sized launch field (we lost several rockets in trees and ponds). I'm hoping the TARC organizers keep next year's challenge accessible to those of us in the tree-covered lands.

I would encourage anyone who likes rocketry to become a mentor for TARC 2006. I really enjoyed it and, since the team was based in my neighborhood, it took very little of my time while giving me some good, spouse-approved excuses to go launch rockets.

Be sure to let the teens in your life know how fun it can be and how relatively easy it is to enter.

You can see a few photos I took of the event at:
https://www.newview.org/salem/photos/2005-tarc/

The NPR coverage can be found at:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4666442

-- Jim

 

[Bazookadale]

Originally posted by jcsalem

You can see a few photos I took of the event at:
https://www.newview.org/salem/photos/2005-tarc/

The NPR coverage can be found at:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4666442

-- Jim

The NPR people were making pests of themselves at TARC but produced a great show so it was worth it!

 

[billspad]

Originally posted by bazookadale
The NPR people were making pests of themselves at TAR but produced a great show so it was worth it!

Were they the people with the big microphones connected to a tiny recorder? I noticed they spent a lot of time with one team on the range I was working on.


Here are my pictures:

https://www.cmass.org/member/Bill.Spadafora/TARC-2005/