The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), the world’s largest rocket contest that challenges middle and high-school students across the country to design and build a rocket that will climb to 750 feet and stay aloft for 45 seconds. As school kicks into high gear and homework and tests begin to threaten, students now have an educational AND fun project to apply in science and physics classrooms. The 2009 contest also dares students to transport a payload of one egg lying on its side, rather than positioned vertically, mimicking the position of an astronaut.

The top 100 qualifying teams are then invited to meet at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va. (outside of Washington, D.C.), in May for a final fly-off and a chance to win more than $60,000 in scholarships and other prizes. One national winning team also earns the chance to attend the International Air Show in Paris.

The competition is sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the National Association of Rocketry, NASA, the Department of Defense, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and more than 30 other AIA member companies in order to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their math and physics skills, work together in a team environment, and design a real aerospace product in order to increase interest in the aerospace industry.

The registration deadline is December 1, 2008 and the details are below (and also attached). To get more information about how to register a team or to find out the rules for the national competition, visit www.rocketcontest.org.