| Events | Rockets | Useful Stuff | Other | bobarnott.com |
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
rocketry: event reports: ukac: 2003
The idea behind the event is to send a group of kids, a rocket and a payload out to fly against the Russian's in the Space Olympics later in the year. Sponsored by Double R Controls and Bolton & Bury Education Business Partnership, they had managed to find five schools interested in taking part. They were all given the same rocket kit to build, but had freedom to put whatever payload in it they wanted.
After a quick safety briefing and TV piece everyone headed up to the range head and set about getting their rockets onto the pads. First up was Dave Beaton's quarter scale PML Patriot, mainly to gauge winds, but also to show the assembled kids what to expect from their rockets. One by one the schools then sent forward a single team member to push the button... Wooosh! Big cheers from all the kids, bigger grins from those who pushed the buttons. All five rockets flew and all five were recovered, although two had damage to them. All in all it was a bit of a success and all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves. As the bus pulled out to take them all to a hotel from the evening some were seen to be still hugging their rocket like they were the most precious things in the world.
Copyright © 1999-2007, Fatboab, all rights reserved.
|
I found myself driving up to Pete's Rockets on a lovely sunny Saturday to help RSO for a bunch of school kids. To say I was nervous was probably an understatement, five teams of teenage school kids just sounded like a recipe for disaster. I needn't have worried though as everything went very smoothly and I must admit to being very impressed with the attitude of all the kids.
The teams had been building and preparing their rockets and payloads for months and this launch was the final step in determining who was going to win. To this end they needed an RSO to monitor each team to make sure that the rockets went together safely and that all the parachutes were attached and motors built and installed in the correct fashion.