Ukrainian Team Powered by Max Polyakov Rocked at TARC

On the May 13, Noosphere Engineering School students took part in The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) at Great Meadow in The Plains, VA.  TARC is the world's largest annual rocket contest. It is a key piece of the aerospace and defense industry’s strategy to build a stronger U.S. workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This year, 812 teams took part in the competition which included over 5,000 participants.

For the first time, a Ukrainian team was able to visit a rocketry competition in the USA. Noosphere, and its founder Max Polyakov, made the young enthusiasts’ dream come true. Our friends from the USA took place in the 2016 FAI World Championships for Space Models in Ukraine. They invited us this year as honored guests to share the spirit of American amateur rocketry.

Only US citizens are officially able to take part in the competition, but our team was granted special permission to launch their rockets alongside US participants, even though they were not eligible to compete for the prize fund.

The contest requires students to design, build and fly a rocket that can safely carry a raw egg payload to a specific altitude and come back to earth within a certain amount of time. The contest rules and scoring parameters change every year spur ingenuity and encourage a fresh approach to rocket design. The Ukrainian team scored the best result in the balsa glider competitions. This required teams to build a glider out of balsa and a few provided components in 20-30 minutes. The winning plane was the one that flew the farthest. Our team blew away the competition by sailing a record 55 feet or 16.76 m. Congratulations!

Along with taking part in the competition, the main goal was to gain experience and make new connections. We took advantage of the opportunity to adopt their best practices. Noosphere Engineering School, founded by Max Polyakov, hopes to arrange a competition like TARC in Ukraine in near future. We also hope to earn the right to represent Ukraine in the International Rocketry Challenge. We believe that these ambitious goals will soon be achieved.