Spaceport-America Cup

Spaceport-America Cup

What is Spaceport America Cup (SA-Cup)?

SA-Cup 2018

spaceportamericacup.com

The Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) + Spaceport America's annually held Spaceport America Cup:

Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (SA-Cup IREC)

Registration by October
Competition held annually by June in New Mexico Spaceport America
Participants from every continent
600 rocketeers
50 colleges and universities
A battle of the best rockets
A physical manifestation of young engineers' burning passion for the future

Motivation: A Stage to Develop Future Greatness

Between 1970-1990, Taiwan was a central pillar of Asian economy, leading the forefront of the Four Asian Tigers.

Upon this heritage of success, a future of greatness awaits, if we provide an opportunity -an international stage- for the young engineers of Taiwan to exercise their full capacity.

The pain of contemporary Asian generation:

From personal interactions, I observed the desire of the present generation for a larger-than-self purpose in life. And with that, the hunger for an opportunity to realize their innate potentials.
E.g.: there was a group of top-achieving students who expressed a deep conflict in personal goals: on the one hand, the strive for better grades in the fear of missing out on a successful career, while on the other hand, the deep-seated feeling of regret that the golden time of college life was not devoted to something more life-affirming than grades.

The pain of contemporary local education:

While NYCU is devoted to the cultivation of international perspectives in students, the results are lackluster at best.
E.g.: some graduating students once expressed: the use of English in engineering lectures (as opposed to Mandarin) is a violation of their learning rights.
Source of the problem: English is a global language, and the foundation of international communications, as well as most scientific/engineering literatures. However, if the opportunities to interact internationally is lacking on a daily basis, the value of international perspectives is easily lost.

"ASARe" Lab

The Aerospace Systems & Aerodynamics Research Lab is a research entity founded in 2020 within the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU)'s mechanical engineering department.

With a core foundation in advanced aerospace technologies, we strive to reduce the pains listed above via a series of "Journey Projects": collaborative (and sometimes competitive) international endeavors embedded in the motif of space exploration, which provide budding engineers with a unique and extraordinary life experience.

The Hero's Journey: Inspiration for Our "Journey Projects"

Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey

The Journey Projects are inspired by Joseph Campbell's concept of the Hero's Journey, which is an archetypal framework of story and growth in literature, mythology and even psychology. The Hero's Journey proposed that in order to mature, an individual must go through a journey that requires them to question, out-grow and discard the present frame (and limitation) of mind. That, it is only through such journey that a person achieves self-actualization.

Unfortunately... the Hero's Journey remains largely metaphorical and abstract in a normal modern life.

The Spirit of "ASARe":

We believe aerospace sciences hold the potential for manifesting Heroes' Journeys in the 21st century. From the moment a rocket reaches for uncharted skies on a column on fire, to the "rocket science" that is synonymous with testing intellectual limits, to international New Space Race, the contemporary aerospace field is brimming with the passion of young scientists, engineers and enthusiasts.

Thus, we believe the unique position of ASARe Lab as an aerospace research entity can be leveraged for dream-building: i.e. to let participating young engineers actualize their "aerospace heroes' journeys" through our series of Journey Projects, which so far include Mission: Reconnect 2020, and Spaceport-America Cup.