What keeps you in the hobby?

This is kind of an odd message to write, but I'm curious about yall's responses. I enjoy rocketry; I really do, but something seems missing in it for me recently.

Now, unfortunately, I teach when my local club does their launches, so my perspective is most certainly tainted a bit by missing out on some camaraderie.

I've got a decently sizable park close to my house, but I do have to stick to the A-D range. I've noticed the past few times I've gone out, I've launched about five rockets and....I'm kinda ready to go home. Woosh-pop, woosh-pop, woosh-pop, woosh-pop, and woosh-pop. (Rinse, lather, repeat, as it were.)

It seems a notion of repetitiveness has crept into the hobby for me and I'm trying to figure out what to do about. I enjoy building the rockets....primarily for the challenge of it (I'm not the most dexterous person, so just getting fins on straight is a huge feeling of accomplishment!). I also enjoy that, for me at least, it takes a lot of concentration and gets me away from the computers.

Have any of yall hit the "repetition stage?" How did you address it? What keeps you engaged in the hobby?

(One thing I want to try is competition, I just need to make it so I can get to my local launches. The idea of constructing a rocket to best achieve a specific goal is quite appealing and looks like a lot of fun.)

I can see how the repetition stage might set in. I know it's been a problem for me with past hobbies. But I feel that rocketry has soo many different areas to explore that it will take some time to ever get to that stage. I consider myself to have an "explorer" personality when it comes to life. I rarely find anything that keeps me interested or happy "just the way it is". This can be especially problematic in personal relationships (another topic), but also applies to hobbies.

My approach is every year or two I find something new/challenging to try in the hobby. I still consider myself new to this hobby (started back in 2011) so there's a lot to try. I got my L1 and L2 in 2012 - that opened the door to a lot of opportunity. I built my first 2-stage HPR the following year. I also started dabbling in building my own GPS trackers about that time (the electronics side of rocketry is a whole other world that I'm still exploring). When I moved to Oregon (we have such an incredible launch site) I knew I had to start pushing designs for more altitude. I got my L3 in 2017 and now I'm working larger 2-stage and minimum diameter rockets. Each of these steps bring new challenges and a lot of new things to learn to be successful. Things I still need to try or do more of: Scratch building, experimental motors, making and fiber-glassing my own tubes and parts, more odd-rocks (both low and high power), etc.... I know I'll be busy and flying for the next decade and beyond.

Maybe try a whole different side of rocketry,,,, get involved with your club's operations. Some clubs operate with one or two guys doing all the behind the scenes work, sending out dues notices, outreach projects, build sessions at local Library,
Equipment fixes/up grades.
There is always something they could use a hand with.
Believe me next time you load a rocket on a CLEAN rail you'll "Appreciate it"

I do it for the thrill of meeting goals. I set a goal to go to X altitude on D,E,F etc impulse then work towards it. I'm not a huge fan of BDR type flying except for exposing friends/family to the hobby in a safer slower manner.

NARTREK at the park.

There's a bit of a bragging right to it..
I love building things, and these are fairly easy to put together. They go together fairly quickly, don't cost an arm & leg to finish (compared to R./C planes!).. Painting & finishing (decals & such) are one of the more enjoyable things to me.
I like the camaraderie at the field. I like being outside, out for the retrieval walks.. (Being away from phones & TVs n such!) We fly once a month, snow, grass, corn, flies.. whatever the season..
Large launches too, the massive group, the big / spectacular flights, being away for 3-4 days. The drive to .. (Potter / Geneseo is a 6hr drive..)
I like sharing what I know and being an impromptu mentor to some..
I like seeing what others have done, how they've done it, etc..
I like the BBQ & beer after the day flying!

But I too do suffer from the "wash-rinse-repeat" cycle too. Last year, I vowed not to build rockets, but do a plane, finish off my wife's doll house, start my wooden boat model.. I got to about September before I started building another rocket!

I do plan to diverse a bit more as I did last year. Finish off the plane, get back into flying RC, do more Lego, maybe get the doll house finished..

thats' what a hobby is.. start, stop at your will, try this, try that, try something else.. hone a skill, buy a tool & learn how to use it.. (Airbrush, lathe, bandsaw, etc..)

For me, it's an unanswerable question. I love being outside, I have made friends at launches that I enjoy seeing and working with, I love the roar of high power motors. I love being good at something.

Yes, there are other outdoor hobbies, but there is just something about rocketry that beats them all. I guess because I can be successful at it. I stunk at golf and I'm too small for most other sports. I like taking walks, but moreso when there is a reason to walk, like recovering a rocket.

I don't know ... . I like driving to the range (an hour plus across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge). I like building motors, using tools. I like the electronics, downloading data. I like having to use the GPS to go find the rocket sometimes. I like helping people get their big projects out to the pads.

I just like it all.

Lots to do. You can do make different things.

Buy n fly
Build kits
Scratch build
Finishing
Electronics
Staging/ clustering
Scale
Make parts (roll tubes, makecones)

If that isn't enough
Research propellant
Make own igniter
Machine own hardware
Come up with own formulas

The list goes on... by the time you did it all, you forgot some from the first time around.

It's a good question.

I agree that sometimes launching can be repetitive woosh-pop. For me, launching marks the the completion and validation of a build. I enjoy watching other people fly big stuff at club launches.

The real draw for me is designing and building. I love envisioning the end product, working the materials with my hands, and turning my vision into reality. Interesting kits can be great too. Each build I try to do something a little different from what I've done before, and that keeps it fresh so far.

Finally I just love the subject matter, and as a result I get lots of enjoyment just surfing the forums reading about what others are doing.

I grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s with the hope that one day we’d be able to board a rocket and visit space and the solar system. That cemented a love of rocketry for me even though it didn’t come to pass. I still have that fascination for rockets, but high power rockets made it somehow seem more real than LPR did. As a born again engineer it’s the technical subject variety that keeps me interested. However, even that would not be enough for me. I found that engaging with other rocketeers was also very important to me at every level, from second graders in my wife’s classroom to TARC students, to NASA SLI. I also took great satisfaction from being an officer of our state club. Those experiences and the friendships I made while doing them eventually grew into more involvement at the organization level. Each of those steps has been very satisfying, but each one in slightly different ways.

What's kept me in for decades is that rocketry is pretty much the hobby of everything. There are a few others like it - F1 racing, robotics, RC airplanes, etc; I just happened to start in rocketry. For a long time I did LPR competition which was relatively inexpensive except for travel, and interesting enough at the time. The early days of RCBG were really exciting too. The advent of high power and personal electronics really expanded the scope. Now there are tons of different things to do:

• simulations and software
• electronics (reflow soldering various Eggtimer boards)
• machining - in the middle of making a CNC mill
• GSE - club launch system, tower launchers, etc
• rocket construction - from micro to pretty big
• TARC support - mentoring teams and operating launches
• Youth rocketry - DART gives hundreds of kids every year their first rocketry experience
• National launches - at least as much for the socializing as the launching
• still a little bit of LPR competition

A lot of these could be specialties all by themselves...how could this not be interesting?

What keeps me coming back to rocketry is all the other stuff that I can do with rocketry. I definitely enjoy building, and building rockets that are either models of 'real' rockets or those that might be a real rocket someday (like the Orbital Transport) are my favorites. The futuristic models link well with my enjoyment of sci-fi. But beyond the building, it is the other stuff. I like to write, and rocketry has always given me an outlet for that. Years ago it was as a newsletter editor, today it is writing for my blog (rocketry-journal.blogspot.com). Also enjoy the history of the space program (again, it aligns with the interest in building models of real rockets) and the men and women who brought the space program to life. There is also the science behind it. Things like using the Barrowman equations to determine stability or how to predict the altitude of a rocket. There is also the challenge of writing software that uses these equations and others, another thing that I enjoy about model rocketry. Our current software project on creating a robust flight log database program fits in nicely. Of course, you can't think about rockets without thinking about science and research. Everything we mentioned above blends in nicely, whether it is building rockets for a research project, creating the software to track the project, writing the report on the project - all of this keeps me coming back to hobby. Rocketry is much like any other hobby - you'll get out of it what you put into it.

There are so many aspects of rocketry that can challenge you. While I do fly high-power, I prefer small rockets with big G's. But for me, the best part of rocketry is RDF tracking. Nothing beats the thrill of hunting a rocket with a tracker. I could do that forever and not get bored.

Some people collect coins or stamps, play basketball, video games, golf, lift weights, whatever. That's fine if it floats your boat. The hobbies that have kept me going and that I keep coming back to are the ones where I MAKE something useful, or make something that does something interesting. Especially when I make something that has much more value or is much more capable than the original materials. Making an apple pie or a loaf of bread. Building a rocket that flies. Grinding/polishing a telescope mirror to less than a millionth of an inch of perfection. Turning a forward closure or a gyroscope rotor or a fire syringe or a set of trammels. Starting a tomato plant/watermelon seed/pepper plant/nectarine tree and encouraging it to bring forth deliciousness. (Grafting trees is SO easy!) Transforming a pile of lumber into a workshop.

My hobbies are ALIVE!

Best -- Terry

Scratch building and teaching students is what keeps me in. I love making things that are completely different from what anyone else has. It’s also very rewarding to teach students how to design and build their own TARC and high power projects.

The network of other rocketeers and people involved in the Hobby. I've been trying to get more involved with my club and help out. That decreases my time building or flying, but it helps others have a good time and get exposed. Also seeing what other people make. Rockets that I would have no interest in building or making on my own, but seeing what someone else's passion can do with them. Learning from other's mistakes and successes and Innovations is also good.

On the Practical side, I try and vary my builds and projects. Finish the high-power, switch down to a low power, or a mid. Finish rocket with 6 fins, work on my next finless rocket. Finished working out an electronic deployment rocket, then work on a higher skill level Estes or similar kit, or run some computer models on a different design.

Most importantly for me staying interested, I make it a point not to let the hobby become a job. If I go to a big launch and fly a lot, or finish a lengthy project, I may not fly for a couple months or pick up one of my rocket for a couple months. I know they'll be there when I feel like I want to return. In the meantime there's the rocket club, antarc teams, and the Forum

I basically have given up going to the local school yard to fly solo. Yes - it gets a bit boring
I wait until I can fly with my club where I can see what others have done and show off my new rockets.
Share in the camaraderie of the sport - everyone always is willing to help each other!
For various reasons, I can only get to about 3 launches a year, so I don't get too much into the repetitive woosh/pop repetitiveness.

cavecentral said:

Lots to do. You can do make different things.

Buy n fly
Build kits
Scratch build
Finishing
Electronics
Staging/ clustering
Scale
Make parts (roll tubes, makecones)

If that isn't enough
Research propellant
Make own igniter
Machine own hardware
Come up with own formulas

The list goes on... by the time you did it all, you forgot some from the first time around.

Click to expand...

Rocketry can also branch out into a whole new hobby in photography...yes, the list goes on.

I stay in the hobby because it's so deep. Any direction I choose to turn there is a vast amount of stuff to figure out and learn. Modeling is a major aspect of it, I grew up 60 miles from the Cape for Gemini and all of Apollo, went to the junk yard to break nichrome out of heating elements to use for starters, when nobody knew what nichrome wire was (before Estes started selling them with their motors). Electronics, started out with mercury switches and flash bulbs, now you need EE training just figure the stuff out. Make your own motors (now that's a rabbit hole) Trying to perfect a B6-6 with KNSU and recycled Estes motor cases(of course I can only fly them at the park or at Tripoli launches, but there's a lot of testing). MD rockets (did you know a t12 lightbulb is a perfect 38mm mandrel) they go real fast. Help your club have a big launch, like LDRS or NSL, that will open your eyes (LDRS at O'burg twice and NSL at Huntsville). Competition is great! I build rockets with the children at my school, just stand back and look at their faces, when something they built really flies, it's worth the time a hundred fold, I could go on but, I think I've made my point. Like I said, any way YOU choose to turn, there's so much. This year is my 50th year in the hobby, and I would never forget the huge number of great people I've met, and interacted with over the years. Well, you asked...

-Mike

This is a cool thread. May I add that high power certification puts you in a very small, elite group of people. Especially when you get to level 3. If there are 3000 level 3 people currently alive (just guessing randomly), that's only 0.00004% of the population of the world.

Why do you need to feel elite?

I’m in it just for the fun of it. Build it, fly it and hopefully you get to bring it home in one piece. Plus it’s also fun to socialize and share ideas.

I think it's a challenge and also a lot of fun. I like building things so rockets are a natural for that.

I started in rocketry around 1964 or so. I've been in and out of the hobby about 5 times. I have some long term rocket projects that I wanted to finish so I thought it was time to do that and I'm back to working on them now.

When I get burned out* on something, taking a break can really help.

I step back long enough until I start to miss it, then jump back in.

*see what I did there?

Being a local to a great rocketry organization like R.O.C. Lucerne Ca. really helps. There are several dry lake beds and large fields that I launch at just before heading off to work. Geography plays a big part in staying active in the hobby. I try to get the most out of the places where I live. Where most people would just see a desert, I see a huge playground for rockets, r/c, 4-wheeling, etc.

For me, and I'm just getting started on rockets,
but its kinda like a second chance to live some of the things I missed growing up...

My dad built a couple of rockets when I was very young...he had to cut the fins out of the balsa plates....no laser cut fins back then...
but I wasn't invited/included in his hobbies very often.... and things were.......distant.

I grew up working very early (age 14) helping Mom out..
but before then...we used to do CRAZY stuff..
Gunpowder, both black and smokeless was common in most of the households growing up.
We used to make "stuff to blow up".... little bombs I guess...
NO PIPE BOMBS OF COURSE....WE HAD BETTER SENSE....and of course....NO ILL INTENT!!!
We were just exploring being a kid....

I remember grinding up black powder (YES you can do that), mixing it with water to saturate thread (100% cotton...rayon mix thread clumps up and kills the burn) to make a fuse when I was 12 years old.....to set off some kind of explosion of some contraption we made.

Around the same era, my girlfriends' dad gave me a half a full size grocery bag full of DYNAMITE IGNITERS!!!
Had fun with that but really didn't do anything bad with em....just kinda used em as firecrackers with wires...
Again NO ILL INTENT....

Anyway, back to your question....
I'm interested...and staying with rockets because I wanna do something PRODUCTIVE with the fire/whoosh/bang thing...and then RECOVER something...
That was something I missed growing up.

Oh too, nice to have a reasonably cheap hobby....at least as far as building goes...

SS

Yeah, whoosh-pop can get a bit stale, but here's an incomplete quick list of things that I've done to keep challenging myself.

- Build a single rocket that can fly on A-G motors. Light enough for A, still stable for G. This was tougher than I originally thought.
- Different recovery methods: Helicopter, Glide, R/C controlled glide
- Multiple motors: Cluster, Staging, cluster and staging
- Fin types: Tube, Grid, Flat, Saucer
- Spin stabilization - impart an intentional spin.
- Electronics: Built my own wireless launch system, playing with on board electronics or payloads
- On board cameras
- Egg lofting
- Targets/Tasks: How close to "x" height without going over. Total flight time without going over, etc...
- Fly the alphabet in a single day (still working on this one)
- Paint and Polish - Finish a rocket nice enough that I may not fly it!
- Scale rockets
- Replicate sounding rocket experiments in miniature

Repeat all the above for HPR. Substitute G-M instead of A-G for the first task.

I find I have at least 4-6 ideas floating in my head at any given time for various things I'd like to try.

Mostly it's the people I fly with. Like most here, I have the insatiable need to spend my idle time in the garage, creating something. Building rockets and RC planes has naturally gone well with my love of all things aviation. However, for both of those projects, if I were to go fly them alone all the time, I would get bored quickly. Flying at my local clubs, and hitting the big regional and local events, is what keeps me going. Folks in this hobby are generally great people, and I get a lot of enjoyment sharing my work with them and seeing what they have done. Of course the evening campfire sessions are great as well. So for me, it's definitely my fellow flyers that keep me motivated.

Flyfalcons said:

Mostly it's the people I fly with. Like most here, I have the insatiable need to spend my idle time in the garage, creating something. Building rockets and RC planes has naturally gone well with my love of all things aviation. However, for both of those projects, if I were to go fly them alone all the time, I would get bored quickly. Flying at my local clubs, and hitting the big regional and local events, is what keeps me going. Folks in this hobby are generally great people, and I get a lot of enjoyment sharing my work with them and seeing what they have done. Of course the evening campfire sessions are great as well. So for me, it's definitely my fellow flyers that keep me motivated.

Click to expand...

Very well said Ryan and most of it is my thoughts as well. My hobby choices with the exception of rocketry are different but the reasons are the same. Generally the people at launches are extremely friendly and have lots of knowledge to share (some good some bad) and they tend to be supportive of every flyer. I am more of a builder than a flier and most of my flying projects fall into two extremes simple pop at the top flights or complex staging, clustering and or difficult builds (like my 4' Nike Hercules with 4 motor booster staging to single motor sustainer which hopefully will fly sometime this year).

Local R.O.C. events give me something to look forward to each month. The events give me goals, purpose and deadlines to meet. We get to "Show and Tell" all of our models we create and see how they perform, unlike most static models that just sit on a shelf. Some of my MOTIVATIONAL GOALS are to increase my highest altitude, work on my Level one, build a higher skill level Estes kit, work on my build pile, build a cluster engine rocket, increase flight counts to 20 for all of my rockets to achieve retirement status if they survive or not get lost...Magician has 15 flights on mostly E 9 engines and still looks brand new...I don't want to press my luck, it's my luckiest and best flying rocket. This motivates me to build more rockets and not get complacent.