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Outreach Opportunity!
Volunteers needed for school launch! (2/28/2000)
Once again this year, Ted Cochran is helping out with a school
launch at Westwood Elementary, and he is looking for some
assistance! The current plan is to assemble the rockets (Estes
Generic E2X kits) on the afternoon of May 5th. Then, they plan
to launch them on A8-3's during the afternoon of June 2 (with a
backup date of June 5 in case of bad weather).
Ted is looking for volunteers who can help out with either the
building or the launching or both. If you can help out, please
contact Ted for more information.
Here's Ted's description of last years launch and an
"inspirational" photo:
 "...
By comparison, Westwood Elementary was a pleasantly paced cakewalk.
We again set up the six pads at 100', and were greeted by four
classes of fourth graders with their 24 Generic E2X rockets we'd
built two weeks ago. We conducted a simultaneous spot landing
contest and a A8-3 E2X parachute duration contest, with one hundred
kids shouting ONE one thousand TWO one thousand THREE one thousand
in unison after every launch. The winning flight lasted a very
respectable 30 seconds or so. Some of the kids brought their own
rockets to launch; we launched Astrocam (A hundred kids looked up
and said, "CHEESE!" but the picture was of the neighboring
field) and I launched the 3-D cluster again, after the customary
chat with Anoka tower. I gave both winning teams genuine Soviet
Commemorative rocket pins... My new launch system worked well,
and boy did the continuity lights save us some time! We also taught
the Westwood kids to look for the pad light next to the active pad
during the countdown, and to yell HOLD! if the wrong one was lit.
That gave them another excuse to yell HOLD! (And with the Anoka
airport traffic, they got good at that!). But Bob, Westwood LCO
extraordinaire, never got caught."
As Bunny says, we all have to "pay forward"!
(Alan Estenson)
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