Outreach Report - Washington County 4-H (5/12/2006)
St. Croix Clovers - Aerospace Project
I met the Washington Co. 4H group at the Baytown Community
Center Friday evening of May 12th. I was requested to help them plan
their Aerospace Project. I had offered many ideas by email.
They requested that I give a short talk on small model
rockets and the safety code. They also wanted to see built rockets
and separate parts. A launch demo was planned. Because of the rain
the demo was rescheduled.
I covered a lot of basic territory of motors and support
equipment as it pertains to a normal setup and the NAR Safety Code.
We went through the path to build rockets by kits and
scratch built with commercial parts. I brought some junk yard
rockets which one 4H leader recognized as a gift wrap tube and
toilet paper tube fins. This was a big hit with the adults and the
leaders. Another big hit were the Art Applewhite oddrocs especially
the 13 mm freebie print outs on #110
cardstock. Of course the 4H Qubit got the preferred choice.
I dry assembled a Estes E2X SkyWriter in less than 5 minutes
to show how easy the E2X kits are for new rocketeers.
I set up the launch equipment to show how the rocket
preparation is done , how the rocket launch sequence and flight
sequence goes. The rocket on the pad was Paul's 1991 Gnome. Rain
stopped the real time show. I used a Christmas tree bulb as a dummy
igniter on the end of the 15' controller cord. This was a big hit
with the crowd.
I covered a lot of material in one hour. This was a great
group to work with. They looked over all the small rockets and paper
kits I brought. Sean decided to offer several to their group to get
a Aerospace Project going for the county fair. As a start they will
build the Estes Gnomes and the Art Applewhite 4H Qubits.
We rescheduled the launch demo to follow the kit building on
the 21th of May.
To help get them going I donated the standard Alpha III Starter kit
and 3 E2X and 1 Lev. 1 kits. I offered to help at the build
session. We also printed out extra paper kits. They should have
enough to build if the interest is there. We'll see on the 21th.
[Ken Jarosch]
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