Olsen Middle School (6/4/2010)
I spent a couple of hours this afternoon at Olsen Middle
School in Minneapolis with a sixth thru 8th grade rocket club formed
by teacher David Hill. Today the kids flew a half dozen rockets they
had built in class and then I flew a few extra rockets I had brought
along. The rockets built by five 2-member teams ranged from a BT-55
rocket about 22" long to a couple of 25-28" long BT-60 based
rockets. Motors used were B6-4 thru D12-5. All of the rockets were
flown and recovered and the only damage was one fin broken when it
landed in the street.
Earlier this year I went out to the school and gave a
presentation on TARC and building model rockets to the club. I
donated the parts for two D powered BT-60 rockets. Those were the
two D powered models flown today. It was nice to see two scratch
built models with nice paint jobs come from the parts I left with
the class. It was also very nice to see them fly (successfully!!).
I flew a Gyroc on an A8-3, a Tinee on an A3-4, a
Decaffinator (or whatever the Flis vertical stack of styro cups is
called) on an A10-3 and a Big Bertha on a B6-4. I left flying C and
D motors and chasing the rockets behind the school, and into the
next block, to the rocket club teams. They were told ahead of time
what to expect, decided to fly anyway, and were happy to go chase
after their rockets.
This club is looking to be a TARC team next year. David Hill
had previously taught at Washington Tech Middle School in St Paul
and had a TARC team at that school for one year. He is very
enthusiastic and looking forward to having perhaps 2 separate TARC
teams from Olsen. The kids in the class (2 girls and 8 boys) all
seemed enthusiastic. And David has the right idea getting sixth
graders involved this year so that they are more prepared to be part
of a TARC team next year.
Finally, this was rocket build-and-fly #1 for 7 of the kids
in the class/club. I will go update the NAR web site with that info.
[Buzz McDermott]
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