The American Rocketry Challenge is the world’s largest rocket contest with nearly 5,000 students across the United States competing each year. The contest gives middle and high school students the opportunity to design, build, and launch model rockets, and provides hands-on experience solving engineering problems.
Student teams build a model rocket that carries one large egg to an altitude of 820 feet, stays airborne for between 43 and 46 seconds, and returns the rocket to the ground safely with the egg unbroken. Participating teams must fly their rocket in front of an observer from the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) for an official qualification score. If a team's score from the sum of two flights is one of the 100 best, all the members of that team will be invited to compete for a share of the $100,000 prize in a national fly-off that takes place in May.
Teams may also compete in two separate but related contests:
- Marketing Competition: students to create a video to generate excitement about their team, the American Rocketry Challenge, and aerospace and space exploration
- Presentation Competition: Participating teams show off their hard work, explain their design, and demonstrate how test flight data drives decision making
Location(s)
- Location for the National Finals varies from year to year
Schedule
- December through May
Cost/Compensation
- $165 registration fee
Eligibility Requirements
- Teams of 3-10 students currently enrolled in grades 6 through 12 are allowed to participate in the competition
- The application for a team must come from a single school or a single U.S.-incorporated non-profit youth organization
- There is no limit to the number of teams that may be entered from any single school or organization, but no more than the best two containing students who attend the same school or who are members of the same organization may be invited to attend the Finals
- Teams may have members from other schools or other organizations
- Teams must be supervised by an adult approved by the principal of the school
Deadline
- December
Application or Entry Requirements
- Each student member must make a significant contribution to the designing, building, and/or launching of the team's entry.
- No part of any of the above activities for a rocket used in a qualification flight or at the Finals may be done by any adult, by a company, or by any person not a student on that team
- No student may be on more than one team
- The supervising teacher/adult may supervise more than one team
- The Challenge is open to the first 1000 teams that submit a completed application, including payment
Notifications of Decisions
- National Finalists are announced in mid-April
Financial Aid Details
Other Dates to Keep in Mind
Have other questions?
The National Association of Rocketry (NAR) is a U.S. non-profit scientific organization dedicated to consumer safety, youth education, and the advancement of technology in sport rocketry. Founded in 1957, the NAR is the oldest and largest spacemodeling organization in the world with over 8,000 members and 200 affiliated clubs across the country.
