Igniting young passion at liftoff - Students build, design model rockets

Valley Press ^ | Saturday, May 17, 2008. | ALLISON GATLIN

[BenLurkin]

MOJAVE - Take a few shouted choruses of the traditional launch countdown. Add the hiss of a model rocket engine, a streak of white smoke and a small, dark object in a clear desert sky. Throw in the enthusiasm of more than 400 elementary school students, complete with team shirts, banners and cheers, and you have the Intermediate Space Challenge.

The challenge, conducted Friday morning at the Mojave Air and Space Port, pits classroom teams of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders from Mojave and California City schools in a competition to build a high-flying model rocket as well as to create team banners and write essays about space.

"We want to ignite your passions and get you excited," challenge founder Marie Walker told the students.

The culmination of the youngsters' work is the rocket launch itself, on a taxiway at the spaceport, which gained worldwide fame for the spaceflight exploits of SpaceShipOne and is home to a number of rocketry companies.

"You're here in Mojave and we're going into space," record-setting aviator Dick Rutan told the students. "That is adventure, and adventure is the essence of life."

The Flaming Stars of Linda Waldheim 's fifth-grade class at Hacienda Elementary School came prepared with metallic star cutouts, complete with streaming tails, to wave like pom-poms.

[wastedyears]

Ping of interest

This is really cool stuff. I wish my teacher did that in school. We had a big enough schoolyard.

[LiberConservative]

I got into enough trouble with bottle rockets. Then I discovered Estes. Bwahahahahaha!

[Red_Devil 232]

I was building and launching rockets from my back yard with Estes motors in the early 60’s! Great fun!

[real saxophonist]

I actually learned about model rocketry in elementary school, and it became a longtime hobby.

In college I took a course called 'Introduction to Spaceflight', and a project in that class was to build and launch model rockets. Most in the class had never done such a thing before, so they threw together the all in one easy assemble kits, one of which disentegrated upon launch.

I made a two stage rocket, about four feet tall, with a custom paint job. We waited to launch that one last, and everyone in the class stuck around to see what was to be a successful, impressive launch. 8~)

[knarf]

Estes ... Oh man.

Estes gave way to a pipe shoved in the ground, a lit firecracker thrown down and a marble on top of that.

Incoming!

[Othniel]

Do a websearch for the Tripoli rocket club. These guys launch 8 foot tall rockets that can (when they have FAA clearance) get to 2 miles in altitude. There's another group called BAR (Big A$$ Rockets) that launch, and the LDRS (Large Dangerous Rocket Societ) does an annual event in Nevada or Utah. Check 'em out. The bigger they are, the more exciting the crash....{8>)

[martin_fierro]

There's just something really appealing about shooting up an egg in a rocket or having one take digital video at its apogee.

[Old Flat Toad]

An egg? The guys at Black Rock are lofting 16 lb bowling balls to obscene heights.

[ME-262]

Time for a BATF raid on these little missile builders. Don't they know that only the government has the right to bear arms?