Latest with the Boys & Girls Club classes

[jflis]

Well, the year has flown by and I realized I have not been keeping up with my photo albums...

As we approach the close of session 5 (Merrimack) and session 6 (Litchfield), I have gotten my current class photo albums posted.

They include the following classes:

For Merrimack, NH:

• Beginner Rocketry (Flea and Rhino)
• Advanced rocketry (Deuce's Wild! and L-13)
• Ukrainian Egg Decorating
• Rubberband powered cars
• Survivor
• Weird Science

For Litchfield, NH:

• Beginner rocketry (Avalear and Sputnik scratch build)
• Rubberband powered cars
• Survivor

Needless to say, it has been a very busy season. You can find the photo albums by following ths link.

I have one more week for this session (Merrimack) and 2 more for Litchfield.

As soon as we have the class schedule for our last session in each district I will post that as well.

I invite you to check out the photo albums and videos. They are posted on Facebook but are set so that anyone can view them. If you ever get a chance to work with your local school or youth group I strongly encourage you to do it. It will repay you 10-fold. Believe me

jim

 

[jflis]

We ran into a frustrating (and common) problem with our rocketry class again this spring. This happens every spring and some times in the fall as well.

Loosing a field to the Athletic department. Years ago I used to schedule the fields (actually call the school district and get on the schedule) only to be setting up and have a baseball team arrive and inform me that they have a make up game or practice and needed me to leave the field. I was informed that it didn't matter if I was on the schedule, they needed the field.

That's when I realized that "scheduling the field" was a waste of time and would just go out on our launch days and take our chances that the field would be available (which is what we were doing even if we WERE on the schedule).

Well, with a lot of growth in both of my rocketry programs, we are flying more rockets and getting more frustration so it came to a head last week with a canceled rocket launch.

I set up a meeting with the school district (Superintendent), the school district maintenance manager, and the school district fields manager. I fully expected to have this concern and possible solutions fall on deaf ears and was prepared to escalate this to the School board and, from there, to a petition warrant article, but that wasn't necessary.

By September of the next school year (this September), we will have the ability to schedule the fields and we can not be kicked off by the sports teams and the facilities people will enforce that. This is good news as we can now schedule our launches and know that the only thing we have to worry about is the weather (which is finicky enough, as it is LOL)

Now to see how our end of year test of this goes (I should have word next week...) I'll keep the board posted if anyone is interested in how this goes and how we were able to get it working.

jim

 

[cjl]

Very nice Jim

I recently did an outreach with the Aerospace Engineering honor society here at CU where we went to an elementary school and helped groups of the 4th graders there to design, build and launch rockets. It was a lot of fun, and definitely worthwhile

 

[UPscaler]

Awesome Jim!

I like the picture of the deuce coming in under chute on the baseball field. The kid on the left sure looks happy about the successful launch. :bangpan:

 

[Pat_B]

I absolutely enjoy your photos Jim. For any clubs doing outreach actitivities your photos illustrate the successful way to do things.

 

[jflis]

Thanks

It's a lot of work but uniquely satisfying I don't teach on Tuesday's and notice that as a session draws to a close that I look forward to those "days off" so that I can get back to some FlisKits work that may have had to slide. THEN, when I hit those days off I find myself wishing I was teaching a class, so I guess that's a good sign LOL

The real trick is trying to come up with new ideas to suggest for classes. For next year I am going to suggest a Rube Goldberg class

 

[mjennings]

ohhh Rube Goldberg's are fun the ME 200 class at my school had to do apple sorter peelers one year, those were fun to watch!

Way to GO Jim. Nice to hear of a victory over the sports teams.

 

[jflis]

First, I have updated all of the photo albums.

Well, the Merrimack beginner rocketry class got their last launch in on Monday (Rhino kits) and that went very well.

The Litchfield beginner rocketry class finished up their Avalear kits. Pretty quick too. We had an extra day so I put together some quick Sputnik kits and we put them together. Kids loved them

In advanced rocketry we finished the L-13 and hope to fly them tomorrow (Friday). I also helped one of my kids with the Nell. He had built it but had serious problems with the connecting tubes. Come to find out he had either a bad batch of epoxy and/or was mixing it incorrectly. I spent 90 min with him after school getting it back together and posted the pix of that in the advanced rocketry album

All of the other classes have concluded. We had an awards ceremony for Survivor on Monday. Wednesday classes were pretty much goof off classes as this was an "extra" week and we had no real plans. Ukrainian egg decorating was frustrating... After teaching this class for 3 years I was informed after last weeks class that we are not allowed to have an open flame (candle) in the room due to safety concerns... THIS in a room with FIVE stoves with kids cooking all manner of pastries as we worked on our eggs. Go figure. So we finished outside and built barriers to keep the candles lit.

Next session (last of the year) for Merrimack will include the following classes:

• Beginning rocketry
• Survivor again
• Cardboard boats
• Flight club
• Advanced rocketry

We won't have the Litchfield last session figured out till after spring recess...

 

[dragon_rider10]

Great photos Jim! I'm considering starting a rocketry thing for kids at my church. I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties with saftey police. Perhaps there is compromise in the concept of Ukranian Decorated Rockets.

 

[jflis]

Here's my Litchfield rocketry class. We had a great launch today, but the wind was sending the Sputnik rockets into the parking lot... Gotta watch that the next time

 

[dragon_rider10]

Here's my Litchfield rocketry class. We had a great launch today, but the wind was sending the Sputnik rockets into the parking lot... Gotta watch that the next time

What a fun looking bunch! What's that rocket on the pad, something new?

 

[jflis]

Yep, a new beginner kit I am working on tentatively called the "Bullseye"

 

[Pippen]

Looks like loads of fun, Jim. We experimented with natural egg dyes and while they didn't have the wow factor that bright, fun colors do, it was really interesting. Used every darned pot in my kitchen, too...:cyclops:

I just ordered from a nature study company called The Private Eye and thought to pass it along to you. They encourage the use of jeweler's loupes and if you check out the gallery, there's a lot of neat spin-offs. Most of the materials are probably cost prohibitive for the kinds of classes you're doing, but the loupe idea and project book looks really cool.
https://www.the-private-eye.com/html/materials/desksets/kits.html#wiab

I bought the do it yourself box (not the $325 one) after pricing out the materials and discovering I couldn't do it cheaper. It's going to double for science class and a fair project.