Top 100 Teams Compete In World's Largest Rocket Contest
By the end of Saturday, the winning team of the Team America
Rocketry Challenge will have been named, having successfully
designed, built, and flown a model rocket carrying one hen egg and
returning it safely (uncracked) to the ground while staying aloft
for exactly 45 seconds and reaching an altitude of exactly 850
feet.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was scheduled to make an
appearance during the award ceremony following the contest and hand
out the first-place trophy to this year's winner.
Other guests scheduled to join Gates included four former
astronauts: Jay Apt; Scott "Doc" Horowitz, a current NASA associate
administrator; Ron Sega, the current undersecretary of the Air
Force; and Buzz Aldrin. Also attending are other leaders from the
Defense Department, NASA, FAA, and representatives from foreign
embassies.
Held in The Plains, VA, the national model rocket competition
for US high school and middle school students offers a grand prize
pool of over $60,000 in scholarships and cash to be shared by the
winning teams. Some 690 teams, made up of three to 15 students,
participated in the earlier events, with the top 100 teams at the
final competition in The Plains.
Team America Rocketry Challenge 2007 is sponsored by the
Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of
Rocketry, with co-sponsorship by NASA, the Defense Department, the
American Association of Physics Teachers, and 38 AIA member
companies.
The event was originally created as a one-time event to
celebrate the 100th anniversary of flight, but AIA opted to hold it
annually after receiving hundreds of requests from students,
teachers, and parents. This year marks the fifth year of the Team
America Rocketry Challenge.
The event is aimed at attracting young people to study science,
math, and other high technology-related subjects. The aerospace and
defense workforce is facing a shortage of skilled employees in
coming years and is encouraging students to consider studying
aerospace fields in college.
The process of designing, building, and flying a
moderately-complex flight vehicle teaches concepts of teamwork;
physics and engineering, including aerodynamics, flight mechanics
and stability; and electrical circuitry for the ignition system.
The process of vehicle optimization for a performance goal also
teaches engineering design and tradeoffs.
The goal for the teams is to fly a hand-made rocket as close as
possible to 850 feet in altitude and 45 seconds in duration. The
rockets carry a raw egg payload that must return to the ground
un-cracked to qualify as a valid flight. Scores are based on
deviations from the altitude and time goals, so a perfect mark
would be zero.
The day's events included opening ceremonies with a military fly
over and a high powered rocket launch; student rocket launches
every hour; a launch by the winning team from the UK rocketry
challenge; a demonstration of large high-powered rockets by the
National Association of Rocketry; interactive displays and
simulators from NASA and the Department of Defense; and exhibits
from several university engineering and aerospace programs and
other educational programs.
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