Welcome,

This webpage is the online platform of Team USA- project Top Shot. We are a student organization at the University of South Alabama which is comprised of electrical and mechanical engineering undergraduate students who annually compete in the NASA University Student Launch Initiative (USLI). This year, for the first time, our team also includes business students. In a team effort during the academic year of 2011-2012 we will construct a rocket which, in a national college completion, will be launched April 21, 2012 in Huntsville, Alabama. The events that take place during the competition year are sponsored by the USA Launch Society which is a campus organization at South Alabama.

The USLI competition challenges university-level students to design, build and fly a reusable rocket with scientific payload to one mile in altitude. Selected member of each school will hand in a proposal to NASA for their rocket and after successful approval will design, build, test, and finally fly a rocket during the academic year. USLI requires a NASA review of the teams’ preliminary and critical designs. The project also requires flight readiness and safety reviews before the rockets and payloads are approved for launch. After launch, teams complete a final report to include conclusions from their science experiment and the overall flight performance. 

The purpose for this project is to provide students with the opportunity to gain real life insight into project work prior to graduation, creating experienced job candidates post-graduation. This hands-on project not only teaches undergraduate students the individual part of a project oriented work environment, but also builds team-work abilities and confidence in overcoming unexpected challenges.

Under "News” you can find monthly updates about our progress as well as more detailed information about the competition. Please find descriptions, scheduled dates for events, and outreaches that we have planned under the “Event” tap. The “Media” tap shows picture slideshows from this year’s and last year’s competition. Last, the “USLI” section of the page provides you with our submitted documents to NASA which though click can be viewed online.

Thank you for visiting our team’s website and enjoy your stay,

Team USA