The nation’s top 100 student rocketry teams will compete in the eighth annual Team America Rocketry Challenge May 15 at Great Meadow in The Plains.

The finalists include teams from 30 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands who qualified after months of preparation from a field of 669 squads and thousands of students.

Four teams from Virginia will be competing – from Burke, Chantilly, Charlottesville and Falls Church.

Qualifying teams of middle and high school students have the chance to earn $60,000 in scholarships and prizes. The TARC champion will also win the opportunity to compete internationally at an air show near London in July.

The list of finalists is available at http://www.rocketcontest.org.

TARC teams are challenged to design, build and launch a model rocket with a raw-egg payload to an altitude of 825 feet and achieve a flight duration between 40 and 45 seconds. The rocket must return the egg safely and unbroken without using a parachute.

The goal of the contest is to bolster student interest in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and attract more young people into aerospace careers.

For more information about TARC, visit http://www.rocketcontest.org.