During the Pulse survey of the Tripoli Rocketry Association (TRA) membership last September, members were asked:
“Would you support a TRA National Technical Convention? (examples: technical/professional presentation, member presentation, committee presentation, update to membership from the BOD)?”
The answer was overwhelmingly affirmative, with over 81% of the participating members indicating that they would support such a convention.
The TRA Board has listened to the members and has decided to conduct TRA’s first annual technical conference on Thursday 7/29 and Friday 7/30 during LDRS-39 in Wendover, Utah. The Board believes that the entire membership will greatly benefit from an intensive educational and information sharing opportunity such as a technical conference. A committee has therefore been formed to produce and coordinate the event.
The TRA TRATECH Committee is now soliciting presenters to speak at the conference in sessions on various rocketry-related topics, including but not necessarily limited to:
• Airframe design and construction
• Electronics
• Simulations
• Motor design
• Propellant formulations & processing
• Static testing
• Advanced manufacturing techniques
• Advanced materials
• Recovery
• Running a club
• Websites
• Looking for launch sites
• Working with the FAA
• Tripoli & high-power history
• ...any other topics that are interesting and relevant!
This will be an in-person event, and we are also planning to broadcast the sessions live on Facebook and/or YouTube. The sessions will be archived for future viewing.
At this point in our planning, the sessions will run from 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM each day and there will be up to 2 tracks of 4 sessions operating simultaneously, for up to 16 sessions. Each session will run for 55 minutes, with a 5 minute break between sessions. Past experience has shown that a 45 minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers works well.
A computer, projector and screen will be available if you plan to use PowerPoint or other software in your presentation.
Depending on the cost of rooms used for the presentations, TRA is considering offering the conference as a free service to its members. Non-members may be asked to pay a fee, which is still being determined.
The TRA TRATECH committee is asking that interested presenters submit the following information:
• Name and contact info of presenter (phone number and email address)
• Title and a one or two-paragraph summary of the presentation
• Short bio of the presenter
• Photograph of the presenter
If you are interested, please submit the above information via email to Gary Rosenfield at garoq@scinternet.net no later than April 30, 2021. The TRATECH committee will make a decision by mid-May on the presenters and schedule, and will communicate with the chosen presenters at that time. This will give participants about 2-1/2 months to work on their presentations before the conference.
Thanks in advance for helping to make TRATECH 2021 and LDRS-39 a successful event!