Project Home Post 1010's TARC Team 13198 was invited to the National Fly-Off on May 12 at the Great Meadow equestrian center in Virginia. With a qualification launch score of 12, we just made the cutoff score of 13.2 for the top 100 teams. The cutoff score to be one of the 20 alternate teams was 16.7. This year TARC received 716 qualification flight reports from 409 teams, 60% of the teams that initially entered TARC 2012. The top 100 teams represent 29 states plus the Virgin Islands. Information     Great Meadow Center 5089 Old Tavern Rd, The Plains, VA 20198     Finalist List, Acceptance Letter, Registration Forms     Event Description Document     Event Schedule and Launch Window Assignments In the week before, see us in the Gazette!

Preparations We submitted the following on our TARC team profile form. This gave the announcer something to say about our team over the public address system before our launch. Sharing failures and successes, the senior TARC team of Explorer Post 1010 designed, built, and tested many rockets over the past three years. We have learned about physics, model construction, but most importantly, friendship and teamwork. Our most recent memorable moment was an exciting rescue of our rocket from an ice covered pond. In order to prepare ourselves, we conducted a practice launch on Saturday, May 5. On Friday night before the fly-off, we attended the event briefing to hear the details of the event. Team 13198 was also selected to give a presentation (PowerPoint).on our quest to make the finals.            Videos: Presentation, Questions

Results The big day finally arrived and we set off to launch our rocket. The rocket weight was 386g, a little over our target weight of 384g. The rocket took off straight and reached a nice height. The chute ejected, but had problems inflating for several seconds. The flight time was way too short. Altitude was 784ft, but the time was 32.82sec to give us a score of 46.54. It was a little disappointing, but we ended up 53rd in the contest of 101 teams for that day. Here are all the award results, and flight details (PDF, Excel). Here are some videos of the flight: Loading, Launch Bob flew  the AR Drone to get some interesting videos. Here they are: Drone 1, Drone 2 (almost lost) Get ready for a June release of TARC 2013. Next year we are going to have three teams in the finals and one in the top ten! Altimeter Data (Excel format)

Schedule Wednesday, May 9 Rocket Preparation - We will prepare our rockets and complete our presentation, 6:30-9:00pm at Lockheed Martin. We need to check our chute and shock cord. Friday, May 11 Rockets on the Hill - A reception for teams by senators at the Russell Senate Office Building, 9-10am. Contestant Briefing - We need to be at the Metz Middle School, 9950 Wellington Rd, Manassas, by 6:30pm. The briefing begins precisely at 7:30pm. We will be leaving Lockheed Martin at 5:30pm - traffic may be very bad. Saturday, May 12 Opening Ceremony - at 8:15am so we should leave Lockheed Martin in Rockville at 7am. First Round Launches - The first launch window is 8:30-9:30am, followed by four more windows, ending at 1:30pm. Team 13198 has been assigned to launch window 10:30-11:30am. They can start to check-in two hours before the window. They need to arrive before check-in to get their egg and assemble their rocket. Second Round Launches - The top 20 teams from the first round must then launch again, 3:00-4:00pm. Team Presentations -  Team 13198 was one of the 12 teams selected to make a presentation on their TARC activity for 2012. The presentation time will be announced on Friday evening. Awards - 5:00pm after which we may stay for dinner at the launch site or just go home.