Winners announced for the Team America Rocketry Challenge 2009
Congratulations to the members of Madison West High School Team #3 from Madison, Wisconsin, who emerged as the winners of the Team America Rocketry Challenge 2009 with a combined two-flight score of 20.54. They won $1000 for their school, $10,000 for themselves, and a trip to the Paris Air Show this June courtesy of Raytheon Corporation. This was Madison West's 5th year making it to the TARC Finals. NAR mentor Pavel Pinkas has done a great job establishing a strong, highly scientific rocketry program at that school.
Finishing just behind Madison West were teams from Festus High School in Festus, Missouri then New Site High School in New Site, Mississippi. A total of $60,000 in cash prizes were distributed among the top 10 teams. Teachers for the top 20 teams will be invited to a NASA-funded workshop this summer on the NASA Student Launch Initiative follow-on high power rocketry program, and these 20 teams will be invited to submit proposals for entry into this program for nest academic year.
Immediately after the TARC Finals we flew the Transatlantic Championship between the visiting winning team from the British UKAYROC competition (identical to TARC) and the US TARC winners. The Secretary of the US Air Force served as the launch control officer. In a single flight head-to-head competition, the UKAYROC team from Royal Liberty School of Romford in Essex, England emerged as the 2009 Transatlantic Champions.
We also conducted the second year of a "Presentation Competition" among 12 of the teams at the Finals, selected from among all those who applied for this optional event based on a pre-screening of their presentations on how they designed, built, and tested their TARC rockets. Each of the 12 teams in this event gave an 8-minute presentation to a panel of scientists. The winners were Madison West High School's "junior" team (Team #1). They received $500 from Launch Magazine and free NAR memberships for all the student members. All 12 teams received Bushnell telescopes and free NAR memberships for their teachers.
Full results and flight details from the TARC 2009 Finals are located on the TARC website.
My thanks to the 105 NAR members who took a great deal of time out of their lives and paid their own expenses to come and do such a a spectacular job in organizing and then running a very smooth and safe TARC Finals under very challenging conditions. My thanks as well to the hundreds of other NAR members nationwide who served as mentors, supporters, and flight observers for the 653 teams from across the U.S. who entered TARC 2009. Your work in "paying forward" to build the future of America's aerospace industry and of our NAR through passing along your skill and enthusiasm for sport rocketry has truly made a difference and is being noticed at the highest levels of the U.S. government and aerospace industry.
We are reflecting on the lessons-learned from TARC 2009 and its challenge and using those to develop the challenge for TARC 2010. We expect to publish the TARC 2010 rules within a month. Registration for TARC 2010 will open, as usual, in early September.
Trip Barber
NAR 4322
NAR TARC Manager