The United Kingdom Aerospace Youth Rocketry Challenge (UKAYRoC) is a junior rocket building competition, established in 2007. The winner wins a cash prize (approximately: £1,000), and the right to compete in the transatlantic challenge, against the winners of the American competition. For the 2010 competition, UKAYRoC teams have to design, construct and successfully launch a rocket

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

, carrying one raw medium size hen's egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

 to an altitude of 825 feet with a flight time between 40 - 45 second

Second

The second is a unit of measurement of time, and is the International System of Units base unit of time. It may be measured using a clock....

s, then return the egg and altimeter

Altimeter

An altimeter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth underwater.-Pressure altimeter:...

 payload section safely and undamaged to earth using streamer recovery only.
In the 2007-09 competitions, the challenge was slightly different, and the aim was to carry the egg as close to 750 feet as possible, in a time as close to 50 seconds as possible.
The 2009 competition was won by Liberty Hope School and the 2008 competition was won by Horsforth School

Horsforth School

Horsforth School is a science specialist state school in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England that was opened in 1972. Located in Horsforth, it educates around 1,500 boys and girls, aged 11 to 18. It was one of the first schools to be given the Special Science status in 2002. Last year 93% of students...

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The 2009 Horsforth School team (which was eventually disqualified, due to a 'technical' error) used a cluster of 4 estes

Estes Industries

Estes Industries is a company based in Penrose, Colorado, USA that designs and builds model rocket and model aircraft engines and kits. They were the best known model rocket company during the "golden age of rocketry" in the 1970s and early 1980s, competing primarily with Centuri Engineering and a...

 D-12 rocket motors.
Many of the teams choose to design their rockets on rocket simulation programs, such as Spacecad, or RockSim, these programs enable users to not only design rockets, but also calculate how well their rockets will perform in different weather conditions.
51 teams entered the 2009 competition, of which 20 made the final.

Media coverage

In 2009, The BBC

BBC Look North (East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)

BBC Look North is the BBC's regional TV news service for East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, north Norfolk and northeast Cambridgeshire produced by BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire...

 ran a short news story on the event, as did Blue Peter

Blue Peter

Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television show, having first aired in 1958. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC channel. During its history there have been many presenters, often consisting of two women and two men at a time...

.

The Daily Mail also published an article on the event.

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UKAYRoC official website

Online model rocket motors shop