Explorer Post 1010 registered three teams in the 2019 Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC). The main web site is http://www.rocketcontest.org/. The challenge is described in the 2019 Rules. This is a year-round activity. We started with experiments focused on the challenge in the summer and the fall. We recruited new members in the fall and started to design and build our competition rockets. During the winter and into the spring we tested our rockets at least once a month.

We completed qualification flights for each team by April 8, 2019. To to be invited to the national fly-off on May 18, TARC adds the scores of the two best qualification launches. The cutoff for this year was 34.48. The cut off for last year was 35.56. Teams 5180 and 5181 made the cut with with scores of 30.68 and 20.00 respectively. Except for a little bad luck Team 5179 could have made it. The finals are the top 101 teams from 830 registered teams across the US. There were 25 teams from Maryland, but only our teams were invited to the finals.

Teams
This year we started with eight members from last year. We recruited six new members in the fall and now have three teams. To be on a team you must be a dues paying member of Post 1010 and have your parents sign the TARC permission form. Members may switch teams until the first qualification flight. Members must participate in designing, building, and launching to remain on a team.

We meet during normal Exploring Program meetings on Wednesdays for work sessions and on Saturdays and Sundays for launches. Each team will build several rockets, including test rockets and backups for their best models. We will document our activities and results on these web pages.

We always need parents to drive to the launch sites. Participants should bring money for lunch or bring food when we are out all day. Wear appropriate clothing. Schedules can change at the last minute due to weather, so keep watching this web site, your email, and call if unsure.

Resources
Wind speed is a big problem for our rockets, so we check http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/code.cgi (Manassas, Frederick) before we launch. The Weather Channel is another source for weather at the Virginia Site and Maryland Site.

The Internet and email are important resources for our teams. Each member should sign up for the TARC Yahoo Group and review the recent emails and files.