The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) is an annual American model rocketry competition for students in grades 7 to 12 sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of Rocketry. Co-sponsors include NASA, United States Department of Defense, the American Association of Physics Teachers and the Civil Air Patrol.
The competition was begun in 2003 as a way to mark the 100th anniversary of flight, but due to a high level of interest it became an annual occurrence. It fosters interest in aerospace engineering careers among the participants, and the national Fly-off in May is an opportunity for corporations, universities, and the armed services to attract students.
The goal of TARC is to design, build and launch a rocket that can safely carry one or two eggs and consistently come very close to a specified flight altitude and duration. Doing well requires good design, workmanship, and altitude prediction, which means that students can learn about engineering, aerodynamics, meteorology, and computer simulation from the competition. A team's score is currently the sum of the difference between their altitude and the target altitude and four times the difference between their duration and the target duration; the lower the score, the better. Many teams consistently achieve scores less than 10.
The specific requirements for each year's challenge are announced during the summer. Teams generally meet starting early in the school year, and must make official qualifying flights by early April. A team only has three chances to fly an official qualification attempt; only scores from flights that meet the contest requirements, are safe, and don't break the egg(s) can be submitted. Typically, about 60% of all of the participating teams submit at least one qualification score. The teams with the top 100 qualifying scores submitted in April compete in the National Fly-off that is held during May at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia.
The event receives local and national media coverage and usually draws well-known representatives of the Defense Department, NASA, the FAA, and other government agencies. Past Fly-offs have been attended by United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Rocket Boys author Homer Hickam, and then-NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, and U.S. Senator Mike Enzi.
The top 10 teams receive a share of $60,000 in scholarship money, and the top 25 teams are invited to submit a proposal for one of 15 spots in NASA's Student Launch Initiative. There are additional awards sponsored by the AIA member corporations in various categories. Starting in 2008, the winners of the U.S. competition have been awarded a trip to either the Paris Air Show or the Farnborough Airshow, courtesy of Raytheon Company, to compete with the winners from other participating countries. The United Kingdom and France currently have similar competitions and compete in the international flyoffs; organizations from Germany, Canada and Japan are in the initial planning stages for starting their own competition.
The 2010 amd 2011 International fly-offs were won by the American winners of TARC.
Read more about Team America Rocketry Challenge: National Flyoffs
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