The Green Vale School’s Friday rocketry club had three teams of four 7th and 8th graders qulify for Nationals among 800 teams from 46 states, most of which are high school age. The rocketry club began building rockets in September with the goal of qualifying for the Team America Rocketry Challenge National Finals in May. To qualify, rockets must perform as close as possible to a set of flight specifications (altitude, duration, payload) established annually by TARC.
After adjusting and repairing rockets following a series of test launches throughout the winter, Green Vale’s teams qualified.
At the May 12-13 event in The Plains, Virginia, the 102 top qualifying teams gathered in an expansive open area to launch their rockets in the presence of TARC officials setting new parameters and recording the flight statistics. The team of Freddy Bancroft (Mill Neck), Frank O’Keefe (Lloyd Harbor), Dylan Rorech (Manhasset), and Jack Sweeney (Wantagh) placed 9th overall, exceeding one target altitude of 800 feet by just 11 feet and another target of 825 feet by just 8 feet. The students shared $5,000 in winnings, plus $1,000 for Green Vale School.
The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) is the world’s largest student rocket contest and 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). Approximately 5,000 students from across the nation compete in TARC each year. The contest challenges students to design, build and fly a rocket to safely carry a raw egg payload to a specific altitude and back within a certain amount of time. The contest’s rules and scoring parameters change every cycle to challenge the students’ ingenuity and encourage a fresh approach to rocket design.
The Green Vale School
250 Valentine’s Lane
5166212420
thegreenvaleschool.org
