Are there any school groups out there?

[PGerringer]

Are there any school rocketry clubs out there that could get benefit or share stories on this forum???

 

[Fishhead]

My 10-year-old son signed up for a enrichment class at his school at the start of this summer. The class involved space and it had a model rocketry section for the older kids in the class. The older kids built their rockets throughout the week and flew them on the last day of class. Sam is excited because next year he'll be considered a big kid and allowed to build and fly a rocket. Until I heard about this class I had been talking with my wife about the possibility of volunteering to teach a Basics of Model Rocketry course next year, but I doubt that the people who run the Space class would want to share the spotlight. This kind of thing happens to me a lot.

 

[PGerringer]

Seems like they would want to do more with rocketry. The physics, the chemistry. In JROTC we had a rocketry club and in the cub scouts one of their badges can be earned with the help of a rocket launch. (engineer I believe) It just doesn't seem to be widely used.

 

[jbrundt]

I remember in junior high, during summer school, I had a space and astronomy class. My buddy and I were in it together and both of us were active with model rockets. Part of the class curriculum was building and flying model rockets. Since we already knew quite a bit the teacher allowed us to help out. On launch day we brought some of our own rockets as well as the ones the other kids had built. We had a blast flying them. of course this was during the early 70's after Apollo and the country still had space fever and embraced the things that went with it.

Even in high school physics class we got to do rocketry. It was a two week unit on forces, trig, gravity, motion, etc as they apply to rockets. We had a really great teacher for that one as well. Unfortunately now schools are so afraid of litigation in case someone is hurt and that they can be held liable rocketry courses seem to be relagated to the scouts and some park districts. You really have to push them and show that this is a safe, fun and educational hobby. It can be a battle sometimes. Too often rockets are lumped together with fireworks and people get the impression what we do is dangerous.

I know when we do a demo for the scouts you can see the look of joy and amazement on their faces, especially when they see a high powered bird take off. I can hear the choruses of 'Whoa, cool!!" right now.

Jeff

 

[Trmbne2000]

Next month my Boy Scout troop is doing our 4th annual rocket launching campout. Every year we make an announcement at the beggining of the summer, and people build rockets and bring them to the campout. Then we have a weekend where Friday night, people can put the finishing touches on if neeeded, and then Saturday we launch all of the rockets. It's a pretty cool event, because we can build and bring whatever we want, as long as it flies. And it's cool to see all of the other rockets people can come up with.

Andrew
[email protected]

 

[PGerringer]

So, what are you going to take to fly???

I can see it now.

B motor - oooooo.
C motor - aaaaaaa.
D motor - wooooh.
G motor - Trmbne2000 is that legal?

 

[Trmbne2000]

I had a very nice rocket that was about a foot and a half long that I had custom built from parts from old rockets and some new parts, and that I was going to launch on a D motor. However, due to an unfortunate test launch accident (parachute fails to deploy; top 5 inches of airframe get crunched; paint job ruined; 2 fins of the 4 fins are hit out of alignment) (I know, all stupid mistakes...) I will have to rush to build a nice new one that will ::crosses fingers:: work correctly. I just have to decide on whether I want to buy a kit or custom build one.

I will probably build a custom one from some plans that I drew up a while back that I never got around to building. It's a pretty cool design, it's about 30in. tall; standard 4 fins on bottom, with 2 cannard-style fins on opposite sides up near the nose cone. And I think that I'll go with the D engine again.

Andrew
[email protected]

 

[PGerringer]

Yikes... Well, at least you learned a few things. Your scratch build sounds interesting. Make sure you include some pictures if you can. We luv us some pictures.

The D will wow the croud just fine I'm sure. But when you go back for the encore, you will need something a little bigger (E). Then after that, something a little bigger again (F), etc. That is where I come in. I'm the Rocket Temptor. My job is to get you to buy more and more rockets.

Where in Va are you? N, S, E or W?

 

[Trmbne2000]

Originally posted by PGerringer


Where in Va are you? N, S, E or W?

I live in Northern VA, about 30 minutes from Washington.

For those of you that are picture hungry; here's a 'crude' drawing of what it should look like:

I have to go get me a load of balsa wood! As I'm building/launching it, I'll try to take some pics and put them somewhere on the forum, but I don't have a digital camera, so it could be hard.

---Could I use the same motor mount to use D, E, and F engines? Or would I have to build/buy some adapter type thing?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[MarkABrown]

Originally posted by Trmbne2000
---Could I use the same motor mount to use D, E, and F engines? Or would I have to build/buy some adapter type thing?

Thanks,
Andrew

No problem with the motor mount. Just don't put a thrust ring in. If you add a thrust ring for "D" motors, you'll have problems with the longer "E's" and "F's".

 

[PGerringer]

Shoot, if you were in Southern Va I was going to invite you to
Whitakers, NC. Oh well. If you are ever in the mood for a 5 - 6
hour roadtrip let us know. We typically launch the last Saturday
of the month.

Ooooo, the Blue Streak looks nice. Are you going to paint the
silver flames on the rocket?

 

[Trmbne2000]

Thanks for the compliment! (Do you think that dual 12in. parachutes is too much, or will one larger one suffice?)

I just got back from a model shop that is about 45 minutes away from my house. (It's a shame I have to go so far for decent quality stuff, but the selection there is worth it) I got almost all of the parts that I will need to build nose cone, body tube, balsa, CA, motor mounts, etc... One really cool thing that I found is a motor mount kit that comes with 6 motor mounts: 1 mini, 3 standard, and 2 E; and it also comes with this tube like thing that supposedly makes the E mount into a D mount, so I can do like you guys suggested and fly it on D and E. I'm not sure if it's for the old or new E though, I haven't seen the specs. As far as the flames go; I am hoping to put them on. I just found a pic of an old hot rod and imported in into Flash (my premier grafx program) and traced it in silver. I plan on just priming/sanding etc. the whole airframe and then spray painting the upper assembly silver, and then masking off flames, and then spray painting the bottom blue, with the gradiet into silver probably doen with my air brush. One really cool thing the shop I go to has are ready made masking sheets. They have different patterns, like one is tiger strips, one is geometric shapes, one is letters, etc; and you just peel them off like stickers and place them where you want, and they peel off when you're done, really cool. I think I'm also gonna get some logos made, like the Blue Streak logo, and maybe an "Andrew's Rocketry" (or simmilar) logo that I could put on subsequent rockets. Well, enough for one post.

Andrew
[email protected]


P.S. I got a new camera, so I'll probably take some construction pix and have them developed on CD to show.

 

[KenParker]

Your E motor mount will work with the new E engines (it would also work with the old E engines as they were the same length - but if by some strange chance you happen to acquire one of the old E engines, DON'T USE IT - they had a bad habit of exploding). The adapter for adaping the E mount to use a D engine works well too - it will also fit over the top of a 24mm Aerotech RMS so that you can use the D, E, and F reloads.

Sounds like you're set. Can't wait to see the pics.