Team America Rocketry Challenge 2019
Click Bond employees support The National Finals for the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) - the world's largest student rocket contest.
Click Bond employees headed to The National Finals for the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) in mid-May for the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and National Association of Rocketry (NAR) sponsored event. This event is the world’s largest student rocket contest. It is also a key piece of the aerospace and defense industry’s strategy to build a stronger U.S. workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Click Bond proudly supports and sponsors the National Finals each year.
This year, the contest’s theme centered around the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The competition challenged students to design, build, and fly a rocket carrying three raw eggs in a capsule to an altitude of 856 feet and return it to ground with the eggs intact within 43-46 seconds. One hundred and one student teams qualified for this year’s National Finals from 25 states!
Ellie Keene, Doug Carlton, and Paul McNeill met with nearly 700 attendees at the event, which included student competitors, their friends and family, industry partners, and customers. They spoke with many student competitors about their future goals in STEM, their favorite part about participating in the contest, and their greatest lessons learned over the year of trying to qualify for the National Finals.
The winning team from Madison West High School (Team 2) took home the top prize and will go on to represent the United States in the International Rocketry Challenge. Their mission is to continue America’s dominance and bring home the country’s 5th straight International Championship during the Paris Air Show in June. The top twenty-five finishers also receive an invitation to participate in NASA’s Student Launch Initiative to continue their exploration of rocketry with high-powered rockets and challenging mission parameters.
Are you interested in participating? You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to supervise or start a team! Getting started in the Team America Rocketry Challenge is simple, and there are plenty of resources to help you along the way. Just visit www.rocketcontest.org to learn more!