ROCK at Sunny Side Children's Village - July 2009
As part of their six-week summer program, the kids at Sunny
Side Children's Village in St. Cloud built and flew rockets.
ROCK volunteers were enlisted to supervise the construction,
pass along some rocketry tidbits and assist with launching.
The classes were focused and goal oriented. The kids
certainly enjoyed learning about rocket flight and had fun
building and decorating their Alpha's.
Launch day was complete success! Some kids witnessed
their first ever rocket launch. Then each had the opportunity
to load up their own Alpha, perform the countdown and
'push the button'.
All flights were safe and most recovered near the pads or
basketball court. We had only one rocket get eaten by a tree
and two landed in the creek, but the kids were undaunted;
inspired even!
Some decided to experiment with their second flight, adding
a balsa glider from another portion of the program to make
an impromptu boost glider, "just like the Shuttle". Too bad
the forward wing brought the CP too close to the CG, but
the kids enjoyed the skywriting.
Many, many thanks go to Tom Dennen, Bracha Smith and
Samuel Crupi for volunteering to help 'Pay Forward' in such
a rewarding fashion.
|
