Big Red Rocketry Qualifies for TARC Nationals

Lawrenceville’s Big Red Rocketry team qualified yesterday for the 2021 Team America Rocketry (TARC) National Championship, the only New Jersey team to do so. Big Red will compete against 99 other teams in a quest for $100,000 in prizes and the title of National Champion. Finals will be held the second week of June at 11 launch sites across the country.

First launched in 2002, the competition challenges middle and high school students to design, build, and fly a rocket that meets rigorous altitude and flight duration parameters through a series of certified, qualifying launches.

The team has been designing, simulating, and building rockets throughout the School year. Their mission: To achieve this year’s TARC goal of launching a single egg up to an altitude as close as possible to 800 feet and returning the egg unbroken to Earth in between 41 and 43 seconds.

Led by faculty advisors Mary Calvert (science teacher) and David Laws (academic dean),members of the Big Red Rocketry team (co-presidents Maddy Laws ’23 and Christabelle Sutter ’23, plus team members Ollie Chiu ’23, Aryana Deshpande ’24, Roma Kale ’23, and Noah Laubach ’23) trekked to the South Jersey Technology Park at Rowan University (Mullica Hill, N.J.) yesterday to attempt qualification. Team members Jack Chou ’23 and Amanda Park ’23 were unable to be at Sunday’s launch.

On Big Red’s first official launch, the flight time fell perfectly within qualifying rounds 41 to 43 second window, but ended up 27 feet short of the 800-foot goal. After removing some mass from the rocket, the team’s second flight also fell within the time window but went 18 feet too high. A minor mass adjustment before the final launch resulted in the best flight of the day (and all time for Lawrenceville’s team), with the rocket reaching an altitude of 807 feet in a time just 0.65 seconds outside of the target window. That flight, combined with the second official flight, gave Lawrenceville an average score low enough to qualify for this year’s TARC nationals.

The Big Red Rocketry team thanks Bruce Canino, the team’s long-time mentor and member of the National Association of Rocketry, for serving as the official launch observer.

For additional information, please contact Lisa M. Gillard Hanson, director of Public Relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.