It was another active student rocketry school year for HARA as North Alabama had ten teams out of the total of thirteen for the state. Besides these teams there were five others from three schools in middle Tennessee that we assisted. For all the rockets fired it was the first time since 2009 that only one team from Huntsville made the top hundred nationally. That sounds like quite a bust from the six teams that went to the finals last year, except Read more
This is a nice article written by Falcon team member Jack Aslan that captures the excitement of preparing for the Finals May 10. The Huntsville team is the only group from Alabama this year to attend.
http://nextgen.yourhub.com/blog/rocket-challenge-update
2012 TARC finalist Victor Murphy recently put into words the impact the TARC program can have saying, “This is life changing. I think this has significantly changed my career choice. Before I wanted to design and build houses, but for sure now I want to be an aeronautic engineer.”
Gifted specialist teacher Beth Boro smiles each year HARA comes out to fly rockets for her students because we’ve been doing it for a long time. “I first heard about you guys in the late eighties when I was teaching at another school. You came to show the students your rockets then and you still are now.” Bill Cooke and I were able to continue the trend Friday morning, April 18 by launching at Horizon Elementary for their Spaceweek celebration Read more
The HARA March Madness TARC launch was a fantastic success with over a hundred people attending at Bragg farm on a mild calm day. Ten teams from six schools made a total of 43 flights, almost twice the number of launches from last year. The skill of the students in their flights was very impressive. Read more
By Vince Huegele
We don’t get many requests for launch demonstrations after Thanksgiving, but that’s when Lincoln Academy called us to help them with their Spaceweek. They had heard there was a rocket club in town and found our website. Read more
by Vince Huegele
As the 2012 school year winds down HARA has been busy with launch demonstrations. On May 3 we were set to fly for the 4-H Urban Youth Farm Day at the A&M field in Hazel Green, but steady showers scrubbed the launch. The facility has a building that could hold all 300 kids so 4-H held the event inside. Read more
by Vince Huegele
Westminster Christian Academy won the regional TARC contest March 17, 2012 in the best attended launch since HARA began hosting the event at Bragg’s farm. Westminster Christian has been in TARC since 2006 with only modest results each year, but this team scored a ‘4’ for a school record. These points are likely good enough for an invitation to the finals in Virginia, May 12.
A TARC rocket sits on the pad in the last second before lift off
Westlawn Middle School took second place and Williams Middle was third. Ten teams from seven schools participated and flew their egg carrying rockets in unseasonably warm and calm skies. This was twice the number of teams that came out last year so we thank everyone for supporting this very successful launch. There were a total of twenty-five TARC flights, most of which were for practice but ten were formal qualification attempts. Six flights were successful and scored points.
Liberty Middle 1 and Ridgeland High of Rossville, Ga. made practice flights only. Ridgeland’s second flight was great and would have been a ’27,’ but rocket damage in a subsequent flight kept them from attempting points. Madison Academy had parachute deployment problems and Bob Jones had an uncooperative altimeter.
All capsules contained two eggs and had to be flown on an “F” motor or less. The target altitude was 800’ but those flights that hit the 43-47 second duration window were rewarded with a zero time deduction.
This year’s trophies
The trophies were beautiful models donated by United Launch Alliance and were awarded to the top three places. Over seventy people were on hand to watch the launches. Vince Huegele and Bill Cooke provided the local officiating to qualify the flights as well as mentoring the teams throughout the year. Teams have until the deadline on April 2 to complete their qualification attempts.
Vince Huegele presents the first place award to Westminster Christian Academy team members Charles Nottingham, Nicholas Kromann (Team Lead), Ben Cyr, and Shane Nelson.
Ray Cole and David Bishop also had the HARA range set up for whatever members wanted to fly. There were 27 sport flights, nine of which were HP and three of them L1 certification attempts.
A Madcow Patriot takes to the skies on an I motor
