Challenge 2026-27 Rules

Final Competition will be held May 8, 2027

Teams of 3 participants must design, build, and fly a model rocket to a height of 450ft, return within 33- 36 seconds, and carry a raw Grade A large egg and an altimeter. The model must recover in one connected piece using a parachute as the recovery device, without cracking the egg’s shell. The rocket must have 2 different diameters, with the smaller diameter at the top holding the payload. All rockets must be painted or decorated for the finals (no bare paper tubing, or wood showing). The rocket must be single-staged and powered by no more than 20 Newton-seconds of combined thrust (clustered motors acceptable).

During the contest, teams will create and maintain an Engineering Design Notebook to track their rocket design, keep notes on topics they learn, and collect test data from launches and other experiments. These notebooks will be the source for a poster about their project that the team will present at the final competition. Industry and STEM judges will view the posters, and teams will answer questions about them.

Contest Scoring

Rocket flights are scored by taking the recorded altitude of the flight and finding the absolute difference from the target altitude of 450ft. This positive number is then added to the number of seconds outside the target duration window. A perfect score would be expressed as a 0.

At the finals, the flight score is added to the poster presentation and engineering notebook scores to determine the top places in 2 divisions: Middle School and High School.

Teams can join the challenge from anywhere in the United States!

REGISTER HERE