The standalone kit is up on the Estes web site now, though I have to be amused at the actual URL: https://estesrockets.com/products/new-mini-alpha-starter-set-bundle-copy as well as some of the copy on that page....
Mini Alpha Starter Set
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Scott_650
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or Mountain Dew.
2003, The Discovery TV show "Rocket Challenge" [If anyone here has not seen it, you should]
One of the many contests was having contestants build a K motor rocket from their set kit of parts and launch it and get it back first.
I don't remember anything other than a "reality TV" staged verbal fight over who stole one guys epoxy.
just one of them, there is 3 episodes each about an hour.
This list should have all the episodes in 5 parts each:
https://www.youtube.com/@RocketryTV/search?query=rocket
This list should have all the episodes in 5 parts each:
https://www.youtube.com/@RocketryTV/search?query=rocket
I dug my Star Hopper out and will fly it at the club launch this weekend. That shock cord mount looks reasonable for inside a BT-20, though with the double knot trying the rubber to the wire loop, it impedes the recovery system getting out at least as much as a tri-fold would do. But with a streamer that's less of an issue.
Capt. Eric
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At the Space Modeling Championships last July in Texas (which I'm sure wasn't at all hot) Estes ran a fun contest for the teams. They had to assemble a rocket and launch it. First one launched wins. The catch - the builder was blindfolded, and another team member read the instructions and guided them, but couldn't touch the rocket until it was finished.
I must have been too busy over in the altimeter tent — I didn't even know that was going on. But I couldn't tell if we were over there when this was going on from the video. Judging by the pile of box lunches on a table this must have happened at the end of lunchtime one of the days.
The model they were assembling is, save for the colors of the parts, the one that is going to be released as the Cosmic Ray. Press together three-fin BT-50 fin can, the Alpha-like fins (actually very close to Alpha and Alpha III-shaped) as on the AstroCam carrier, six inches of BT-50 punched for the tabs on the fin can and that odd shock cord mount, and a blow molded-nose cone that is the same one used in current Alpha kits except for the color.
It was fun to see James Duffy (who was the CD of the WSMC and posts his lovely builds here on TRF), John Langford (among other things the owner of Estes Industries these days), Scott Hunsicker, currently at Estes (who is this year's NARAM CD), and of course Nicole Bayeur (Education director at Estes) having some fun with the teams.
It's was also kind of an interesting test of instructions that are mostly just diagrams.
Fun stuff.
Initiator001
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This all started when Estes moved kit production to Communist China.
Motor production remained at Penrose. It would have been very expensive to ship motors/igniters to the PRC to put in starter sets and then ship the product back to the USA.
So, the starter sets were made in the PRC, shipped to Penrose where the motors, igniters/starters and wadding were packed in the box, the box was sealed (shrink-wrap), put back in the master shipping carton and sent out to hobby distributors.
Estes management realized at the time that all this extra work was cutting into profits so they created the 'launch set' which was a starter set without any of the Made In USA components. This way the entire product was made in the PRC and required no extra work once it arrived here in the States.
Other rocketry manufacturers followed suit because as Estes goes so goes the rest of the industry and the hobby distributors/retailers wanted the same thing from all major manufacturers.
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NM - making a new thread.
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