Year 6 at Westwood! (5/27/2004)
Westwood Elementary School Build and Fly 2004
(Mark and Ted's Excellent Adventure)
Mark: I arrived at Westwood school about 1230. Ted
was setting up the launch pads.(12 total) I helped him get
things ready. We had brought a few rockets along and we
prepped them, I brought my UFO, my Cherokee D clone, my egglofter
and the trusty Estes Impulse.
Ted: I brought two stomp rockets, a Skywinder, and my
Silver Comet.
Mark: We quickly put them away till the time was
right. Since it had been a while since I had done one of these, I
asked Ted what to expect, he said they are pretty easy going.
Imagine my surprise when the children were brought out. I believe
there were 3 classes of 4th graders. All were armed with E2x kits.
Ted: These had been built en masse almost two weeks ago. Three
kids to a rocket. Most were in good shape, although we had to supply
a few extra launch lugs....Always bring extra launch lugs!
Mark: We helped each class with prepping each of their kits,
wadding, packing chutes etc. We then loaded each with A8-3s and
proceeded to the pads. I acted as timer for each flight. I was
impressed with the reliability. No misfires, just one got
stuck on the rod. Yes, there were a few separations but that is to
be expected I guess. No rockets were sacrificed to the tree gods,
although with today's winds one nose cone is probably STILL drifting
to the south on its chute.
After we finished with the kids, we hauled out our stuff.
Ted brought out his Stomp Rockets one with an A and one with a C.
The kids got a kick out of seeing the differences in motor power. My
Cherokee clone flew well on a D12-5 .
Ted: The Skywinder did its usual drill-for-oil routine, and
the seven-year-old Silver Comet had a nice 42nd flight--its third at
Westwood.
Mark: My UFO got a little squirrelly on a C6-3. My
egglofter was next. Why is it one can fly stuff when alone and they
work great and when you demo, they don't??? Yes the egglofter came
in a whole lot faster than planned and a lot closer to the group
than I wanted. Can you say omelet??? Nothing broke on the kit
but the egg.
Ted: I took the opportunity to tell the kids that even
though the rocket planted itself nose first a few feet away from us,
it only _looked_ bad--a baseball hit to the outfield has a lot more
energy!
Mark: My last one was the (formerly) reliable Estes Impulse
on 2 D12-5s. Only one motor lit, That hasn't happened to me for a
while now (at least on the Impulse) She plowed into the field
burying the nose half way in . She then did the Wile E Coyote
recovery. Shooting the body into the air as far as the elastic would
stretch and slamming it into Terra Firma. Lots of laughs on that
one. No damage to the rocket that can't be fixed. We packed it in by
400 and headed out. Big thanks to Ted for doing this outreach
for the past 6 years, I had a great time. I would also like to
thank mycompany (Exeter Realty) for giving me the opportunity to
help the kids.
(Ted Cochran and Mark Thell)
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