NASA, aerospace organizations and amateur
rocketry organizations like the National
Association of Rocketry sponsor various
student team competitions in rocketry in
the USA. Here is a sampling:
High school student teams prepare for launching
their rockets
during the finals of the 2008 Team
America Rocketry Challenge.
** Team
America Rocketry Challenge - NAR
& AIA sponsored a "national model
rocket competition for U.S. high school
and junior high school students." The organizations
"challenge you to design, build, and fly
a multi-stage model rocket carrying two
raw eggs and an electronic altimeter to
exactly 1500 feet, returning both eggs intact.
The top five teams shared in a total prize
pool of approximately $50,000 in savings
bonds, and approximately $9,000 in cash
awards will be divided among the sponsoring
teachers' departments."
** NASA
Student Launch Initiative - involves
"middle and high school students in
designing, building and testing reusable
rockets with associated scientific payloads.
This unique hands-on experience allows students
to demonstrate proof-of-concept for their
designs and gives previously abstract concepts
tangibility".
** NASA
University Student Launch Initiative,
"or USLI, is a competition that challenges
university-level students to design, build
and fly a reusable rocket with scientific
payload to one mile in altitude. The project
engages students in scientific research
and real-world engineering processes with
NASA engineers."
** Rockets-for-Schools
- "Spaceport Sheboygan has been Wisconsin's
home of Rockets for Schools since its inception
in 1995. Each year, more than 300 students
from Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan
have participated in successful launches
at Spaceport Sheboygan. From 2001 through
the present, students from Sheboygan County
have also been involved in an elementary-level
rocket launch."
** CanSat
Competition - This contest involves
building a payload that will "be launched
and deployed from a rocket at an altitude
of about 760 meters". It must descend
and land safely and then perform autonomous
operations. The competition "allows
teams from universities and high schools
to design and build a space-type system,
according to the specifications released
by the competition organizing committee,
and then compete against each at the end
of two semesters to determine the winners".
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