CONTEST EMAIL ARCHIVES

Date: 10/13/2006

Subject: TARC Deadline Approaching!!

There is only a month left to register your team for the 5th Annual Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world's largest rocket contest! The prizes are huge and the experience is invaluable, so be sure your team is one of the first 750 to register before November 15th!!

Check out www.rocketcontest.org for application information and be sure it's postmarked on or before November 15th! Also, check out the Rules, Handbook and FAQs for more detailed information. Remember, teams can be from any US school or non-profit youth organization, such as Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H and church youth groups.

Make your team a part of this exciting and educational event! See the article below to catch the TARC enthusiasm, as this team from Georgia has!

Shoot for the Stars!

~The TARC Staff

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Which came first the egg or the rocket?
By Alline Kent
TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST

Which came first the egg or the rocket? If you are Michael Graul, the answer is the rocket.

Michael has been interested in rockets since he was 11 years old - just a kid. He's 15 now, so with four years of experience behind him, he has some pretty good advice for the first step in launching a rocket:

Read the instructions.

Michael started with kits, the kind you can buy in any hobby shop. But Michael has graduated from rocket kits to building rockets himself.

Don't worry, he still does a lot of reading. It's just that instead of folded up directions from a box, now he pores over books and magazines on the subject.

Michael's enthusiasm for rockets is so strong that last year he enlisted a couple of his friends from Scout Troop 566 to form a team to compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world's largest model rocket contest. The team finished 55th in the nation last year and has plans to return again this year for the national competition.

But there are a few things first. Like planning the rocket and the launch. Building the rocket. Testing the rocket, retesting the rocket.

The goal is an altitude of precisely 850 feet for 45 seconds with a landing that doesn't damage the cargo of a raw egg.

"Right now, we are using a simulator on a computer to test all the factors, modifying things except for the things that are predetermined by the contest," Michael explained.

The group of five scouts gets together to work on their rocket at least once a week. That's in addition to their scout meetings.

But building a rocket takes more than patience and time. It takes money.

Just ask the folks at NASA.

When the scouts get their rocket built, they will start testing the rocket using a reloadable engine - an engine that costs about $20 per 3 shots.

Michael figures that the team will test their rocket about 100 times.

If the team gets to return to the finals in Washington, D.C., like they did last year, there will be travel expenses along with the cost of building and testing the rocket.

"We work hard on our rocket," said Michael, "so there is a high probability in my eyes that we will go back to Washington."

You might ask, why rockets? Well, whether age 15 or 50, watching something that you have built go up in the air is pretty cool.

Again, you can ask the folks at NASA.

Michael is also working on his Eagle Scout badge and plays baritone in the Black and Silver Brigade band, all while maintaining an honor-roll-worthy grade point average that will help him reach his goal of being an aerospace engineer one day.

Which brings up another question: Which came first, the rocket or the engineer?

In Michael's case it was the rocket.

The Troop 566 yard sale for the rocket team will be tomorrow (Saturday) at Trinity United Methodist Church in Warner Robins at 129 S. Houston Road starting at 8 am. Along with the typical things you find at a yard sale, there will be some homemade goodies for sale, baked not by Michael and the other rocket team members but by their moms and sisters.

"We wanted people to buy them," Michael explained.

Stop by the yard sale, meet the members of the rocket team, buy a cookie or a ceramic knick-knack. Donations for the rocket team - I can't pass up the opportunity to say it - to get off the ground are also welcomed.

You can be a part of helping these kids blast off.

Alline Kent's columns appear three days a week. She may be contacted via e-mail at AllineKent@cox.net, or by calling 396-2467.

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