Northern Illinois Rocketry Convention, 2/18/2012

[ekchess]

What: 2012 Northern Illinois Rocketry Conference for those interested in model rockets

When: Saturday, February 18, 2012, 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Where: Challenger Learning Center, 222 W. Church Street, Woodstock, IL

Who: Contact Mark Bundick, 815-337-9068, mbundick@earthlink.net

Details: The 2012 Northern Illinois Rocketry Conference (NIRCON-2012) will be held on Saturday, February 18, at the Challenger Learning Center, Woodstock, IL starting 9:00 AM. The one day conference will feature seven speakers covering model rocketry topics from “Rocketry 101” to “International Competition”. There will also be two “Make It – Take It” sessions for beginners interested in building their first model rocket kit. The event is open to the public and free.

[marcm]

The spiffy flyer can be found HERE.

For those too lazy to print the flyer, here's a list of planned presentations:

Beyond 3 Fins and a Nose Cone
Fiberglassing for Beginners
Make It / Take It Session #1
The Universe
2011 TARC Finals Challenger Center TARC Team
International Competition
Make It / Take It Session
Failure Analysis & Upscale Engineering
Micromaxx Rocketry
Rocketry 101

If you're in the Chicagoland/Northern Illinois area, you should definitely make plans to join us!

[Gus]

My thanks to NIRA and Fox Valley Rocketeers, and to the Challenger Center of Woodstock for a truly wonderful event, and to Bill of BMS who came to support the event.

I drove in from Michigan for this and it was well worth the drive. Great presentations all around. Particular highlights were the Micromax talk with a surprise appearance via Skype by Jim Flis who showed off products and answered questions. Note to vendors, this is a fantastic way to promote your products.

Other high points were an outstanding talk by a young lady whose TARC team made the finals last year, and by Mark Bundick on tips for organizing your workshop. There were also great talks on fiberglassing, International competition, failure mode analysis, and a presentation by a JPL outreach volunteer.

This was an incredibly enjoyable day of rocketry and all without launching a single rocket.

My thanks again to all who participated in making this event possible.

Steve

[GuyNoir]

Thanks to Gus for the kind comments.

We had a turnout of about 30 folks who spent the day hearing about topics from FAI Competition to prang films. Thanks to Jim Flis for "participating" via Skype, and to Bill Saindon from BMS who had the vendor space to himself (hint to local vendors for future events).

Both NIRA and FVR will be spending time discussing the event at our March meetings, and seeing whether we'll reprise this in 2013. Look at both clubs' websites in a week or two for photos and write ups.

[dpower]

This was a great event. I enjoyed all the talks, particularly "The Universe" by the JPL fellow. Got to meet some FVR & NIRA folks, and did a little business with Bill too. The Skype with Jim Flis, despite minor technical glitches, was brilliant. Carl next year? What a neat place to hold it too.

(Hope you remembered to put the ceiling tiles back!)

[jflis]

That was a lot of fun and I thank Marc for suggesting it in the first place. Certainly a great way for vendors to participate when travel there doesn't work.

Not only vendors, but anyone with unique, fun and exciting information to share and a desire to share it

Keep in mind that FlisKits is always available for such participation, schedule permitting

[Pat_B]

It was a fun time, and though I wasn't there early enough to see Jim's Skype presentatin, I know that everyone really enjoyed it.

I think these smaller regional get-togethers are a good idea in this age when rocket clubs tend to be smaller. It's nice getting a bunch of folks together from throughout an area to pull something like this together.

Steve came down a day earlier and we spent the weekend together working on spacemodeling 'stuff'. It was a nice rocket weekend for us all.