Posted on 04/06/2016 12:38:47 PM PDT by Gamecock
Authorities say two Southern California high school students attached a homemade model rocket to a skateboard before it exploded and killed one of the teens. The blast Monday evening in the courtyard of a Ventura County elementary school killed 18-year-old Bernard Moon, the AP reports. His 17-year-old friend was injured and is in stable condition. Sheriff's Detective Timothy Loman says the teens built the rocket and attached it to the skateboard as a propulsion device. Authorities say the experiment wasn't sanctioned by the elementary school. The teens attended Thousand Oaks High School, which said in a Twitter post: "Our hearts are broken."
Investigators will try to piece together the homemade rocket. Capt. Garo Kuredjian says the two high school seniors apparently were experimenting with "some sort of chemical combination" before the accidental blast Monday. Investigators will try to determine the size and shape of the rocket, which blew apart. Kuredjian says the fuel wasn't propane, as officials initially reported.
I haven’t looked at the whole thread, but surely somebody has posted the Wiley Coyote graphic by now ...
There is model rocketry, with factory produced motors, igniters, and remote launch controls, all of which allow a safe hobby. We used to experiment by attaching the motors to small cars, and planes(among other things) but we were smart enough to run the wire out a safe distance when we ignited the motors.
I understand completely. I was born on the day John Glenn went up.it’s never too late!
I was thinking more ACME.
Classic!!!
Authorities say the experiment wasn’t sanctioned by the elementary school.....DUH! Who did sanction it? LIBERALS,MMMMH.
-PJ
Yep, there is a good reason that the wires to the igniter is so long. But then maybe he watched Wyle E. Coyote walk away from so many disaster that he thought he wouldn’t be harmed. And since those old cartoons didn’t have warnings that people shouldn’t try this at home, I think that Warner Bros is acceptable.
I am saddened by the lack of sympathy in some of the remarks posted here..... Don’t be be saddened. Sometimes, once in a while, certain situations are so over the top, blatently, jaw-dropping stupid that even tragedy brings on a hilarious response. It is merely human.
Ah, cool. Yep, those rocket engines went quick. Sure went quick! PFFFFT! ALMOST makes me want to fool with them again but I know it’d be frowned upon by the sour-ass city cops here. Too noisy. Sure were fun, though!
Well put.
I did so many stupid things with rockets and explosives as a kid, but miraculously... here I am!
Boys will be boys.
Kid had guts.
In our bubblewrapped nerf world, of course it wasn't
LOL. My 7th grade science teacher wouldn't teach me (probably good judgment on his part), so I went to the library encyclopedia and looked it up. I later snuck into the science lab, got the ingredients, mixed them together, poured out a line and lit it. Poof! It left a terrible scar on the wall and stunk up half the school. I eventually had to fess up. The grownups were not happy. 45 years later, that scar still remains.
As I remember it, we made about 5 pounds of the stuff.
The “rocket” was about 4’ long and we had a “shuttle” on the back of it which was about 1.75” long.
Lucky we didn’t kill ourselves!
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