Last Updated: 05/18/2011*

A team from Rockwall-Heath High School in Heath, Texas, took first place to earn the title of 2011 national champion in the Team America Rocketry Challenge finals May 14 at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va. Raytheon was the lead sponsor of the event, the ninth annual TARC competition.

Rockwell-Heath's winning score was 16.0, the closest to a perfect score of zero. Harmony Magnet Academy from Strathmore, Calif., and Lambert High School from Suwanee, Ga., tied for second place with a score of 23.

A highlight of the TARC event was the unofficial participation and flight demonstration by a Japanese rocketry team. A TARC official presented the team with a check for $4,000 for a Japanese disaster relief fund that will be used to help with recovery and rebuilding efforts following the devastating earthquake and tsunami March 11.

More than 600 teams began the journey
Rockwall-Heath's quest began in September when the team joined more than 600 participating teams on a journey that included rocketry design, simulated flights and test launches. Sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and the National Association of Rocketry, the contest encourages students to prepare for careers in the aerospace industry, which is working to secure the pipeline of students with skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

More than 100 qualifying teams from 34 states competed in the championship round. Each three- to 10-person team was challenged to design and build a rocket that would lift off to an altitude of exactly 750 feet, stay aloft for 40 to 45 seconds carrying a cargo of a raw egg, and return the cargo to earth — undamaged — by parachute.

"This contest is why I'm going into aerospace," said Rockwall-Heath Team President John Easum, who is attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the fall. "It's hands-on, and you experience a lot of failures, but then you troubleshoot and end up with success. It's a really good feeling."

Raytheon will fund the Rockwall-Heath team's travel to the international fly-off to be held June 24 at the 2011 International Paris Air Show in a competition against teams from the U.K. and France. The winning team will share a prize pool of more than $60,000 in scholarships. The top 20 U.S. teams will receive an invitation from NASA to participate in its Student Launch Initiative, an advanced rocketry design program.

Supporting math and science careers
On the day before the fly-off in Virginia, Raytheon participated in the TARC orientation in Manassas, where students, their parents and TARC coaches learned more about the competition and received career advice from Raytheon engineers Kelly Lei and Michael Wittman.

Lei, a senior engineer at Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS) business and their Mid Atlantic Sustainability Program lead, gave the students this career advice: "Do something that you love. Write down what you like to do and find out what you are not interested in. Always have a plan in place. It will help you in the future."

Wittman discussed his responsibilities as an IIS senior software engineer supporting the Department of Homeland Security U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program, which requires working with one of the largest biometric identification systems in the world. Wittman is also the solution architect for a system modernization component of the program.

At the competition, Raytheon hosted a MathMovesU® booth, where employee volunteers discussed the company's focus on math and science education, as well as its portfolio of STEM-focused programs and initiatives.

Tomorrow's innovators
"We're delighted with this year's competition," said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey. "It's clear that all the teams put a lot of effort into their rockets. I'm sure that in just a few short years, we'll be welcoming a number of today's participants to our industry."

More than 50,000 students have entered the TARC competition since its inception in 2003. In a 2010 survey of TARC alumni, 92 percent of participants said they would encourage a friend to pursue a STEM-related career and four out of five respondents said TARC has had a positive impact on their course of study.

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