Launch!

The "sign-up" sheets/mechanisms for volunteering at a club launch have changed with the adoption of the new website.

Signup either via the Calendar event for the launch, or from the Volunteering section of the website, available from the "For Members" menu dropdown at the top of each page. A unique volunteering signup event will be available and open a week or so prior to the launch event that it is associated to.

In the FAQ page of the site, under the "Navigating the Website" section, you'll find a FAQ titled "How do I signup to help at a launch?" which goes into details on where to go to sign up.

By default, volunteer hours are tracked, with the goal of recognizing those folks at the end of the launch season (you can choose not to track your hours, but you'll miss out on the opportunity to win some free kits I'm considering donating). Also note that there are slots in the sign-up page for range setup and teardown - for those folks that routinely volunteer for that, consider signing up to track your hours for fame and the aforementioned fortune.

Please consider giving your time to help the club run the launch, and give the usual suspects volunteers the opportunity to fly. Those experienced folks are available to teach you LCO and safety check duties, and you'll have the opportunity to not only learn that side of the range, but to be recognized at season's end (again, the aforementioned fortune rocket-giveaway).

Please chime in with any thoughts. I'm thinking about how we can work in some mentoring for LCO and safety check, as well as how we might introduce the role of a roaming pad helper.

I have been thinking about asking the powers that be about creating a position like that for several years but for whatever reason have just never brought it up. I was thinking about calling it the Range Assistance Officer or Pad Assistance Officer.

Duties are mostly self explanatory I would guess. The main thing would be to help young and first time flyers manipulate the pads to get rockets loaded and pointed in the right direction. Not to beat a dead horse, but the LCO should not have to tell a flyer 5 times not to point a rocket towards the power lines. The RAO could help with this.

Helping flyers and the LCO with relays and continuity checks. Providing a second set of eyes or hands for leads touching or hooking up clip whips.

Fire suppression.

Just be someone on the range near the pads who can help if needed.

I was also thinking that this person could have a small box of some kind they could keep in their pocket (or fanny pack if that's your thing) with a few spare ignitors and plugs, a little tape, some sandpaper, hobby knife, and a tiny bottle of thin super glue. I think it would be great if you could just hand the kid an ignitor, replace it and put the rocket right back on the pad. Or just take ten seconds to super glue the launch lug back on and fly. Obviously this is situational. If there are others waiting for the pad and the issue is more time consuming you can direct the flyer back to their prep area for repairs and cycle the pad. I'll supply it if folks think this is a good idea.

So I guess all this is to say I'm happy to volunteer for Range Assistance Officer or whatever the name ends up being. When it's windy I don't fly much if at all anyway. If we have some days like last summer, I will want to fly some.

Andrew

Great post Andrew. Great ideas as well on how to help out at the pads.

When I brought this up to Guy a month or so back, he said that National and larger launches do have a roving pad assistant, and while a great idea for our club, the concern is that we have a difficult enough time filling the LCO and safety check slots.

Maybe with your momentum, we can get some folks to pitch in. I'll volunteer some time as well.

-- Todd

Having Pad Assistants (Rob and I have tended to refer to the role as "Pad Rats", LOL) as one of the "official" volunteer slots sounds like a great idea to me, and I'd be willing to volunteer for shifts. I've assisted in the past when we've had the scout troops there, but especially when we know we'll have a large, inexperienced group joining the launch, having multiple folks lined up in advance to assist would help keep things moving smoothly (and prevent bent launch rods!).

Thanks Deb (and Andrew). I've created volunteering slots for the upcoming launch for Pad Assistance Officer (pronounced "POW!") - aka Pad Rat. We'll see how that works out.

I've done some spur-of-the-moment pad coaching from time to time. And last year when we've had a big turnout of Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts I volunteered to help them too. I enjoy doing it and I'm always happy to see a new rocketeer have a successful flight.

I think it's a good idea to have official pad officers available as part of our launch crew at every launch. There are almost always new rocketeers present, or more experienced ones who have never launched with us and don't know how the pads work.

I'm interested in the other jobs mentioned as well. I'll need some experience flying mid power and start working toward high power for RSO/LCO as I understand it though.

I've helped out with setup and takedown but so far everything I know about it I sort of learned as I went, with a little coaching from the other guys. But there are significant gaps in my knowledge there. I'm pretty good with lugging stuff out and back, but the only job I know well enough to do on my own to set up rods and deflectors. I think we need, if we don't have it already, additional written documentation on setup and takedown, with photos of possible. What's the first thing we do? And the next, and the next?

But I'll sign up for pad duty. I'm sure it'll help things go more smoothly. Although, I have to say we do a good job of handling the big crowds of kids already.

Now, if we can only get some decent flying weather...

Rick

I just tried about 6 times to figure out how to volunteer for this and every time I got an error message saying my volunteering session has timed out, please try again later. Any suggestions?

Man must rise above the earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only thus shall he truly understand the world in which he lives. Socrates ~ 400 BC

Hi Andrew -

I'm not familiar with this problem. Can we schedule a screen-share so that I can see what's going on, and hopefully fix it?

Otherwise, I can sign you up if you tell me what times you're interested in volunteering.

 -- Todd

I've experienced that "session timeout" error when I've had multiple browser tabs open on the volunteering module. Could be that there's a session-based lock or checkout created to deal with race conditions around signup. Try logging out and logging back in (closing the browser beforehand), and make sure that you only have one browser tab open on the site.

If you're successful there, you may run into another problem.

Another member emailed me that they are seeing an "An error occurred loading page" after committing the volunteer signup, which interferes with capturing a slot position. I'm also seeing that error (though I'm able to commit the change - could be an administrator super-power), and searching the CE admin forums, this is a problem that has been seen before.

So, this is a ClubExpress problem, and I opened a support ticket. There are times that they change things at the back end, as we admins don't hear about it.

I don't want this to interfere with folks' ability to volunteer, so if you continue to be unsuccessful at signup, email me (webmaster), and I'll sign you up.

Sorry for the inconvenience - we want to make the process of volunteering as easy as possible.

-- Todd

Thanks for thinking about this Rick.

You say that you have "gaps in your knowledge". Will you be able to fill those gaps in future launches and take photos? If so, would you be willing to write up an article? I know that you've written some entertaining launch reports.

I think I got it this time. It took 3 tries and 2 browser refreshes but I think I am signed up for the first two and last slot for Pad Assistance Officer.

Personally not jazzed about the term "Pad Rat" But whatever.

Now to find something to sacrifice to the wind gods.

Andrew

Man must rise above the earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only thus shall he truly understand the world in which he lives. Socrates ~ 400 BC

I get that. The role (to which the volunteering slot is assigned) is "Pad Assistance Officer", a term that I took from you. The title of the slot was a nod/wink to Deb's term, in recognition of her volunteering.

Sorry about that. That came across more snarky than I meant it to. What I meant was that if people like calling it that then I'm ok with it.

Deb is awesome, I meant no disrespect to her at all. She'll probably be better at this than me, but I still want to do it. 😁

Andrew

Man must rise above the earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only thus shall he truly understand the world in which he lives. Socrates ~ 400 BC

I could take photos but several things will be going on at once, So I might have to do it one task at a time, one launch at a time. Unless I can draft one or two people to assist.

I could take a crack at writing some procedures, too.

The goal as I see it is to have enough of us available that can do things automatically, just in case the regulars who do know it by heart aren't around.

As it turns out, I haven't gotten a whole lot of building done and I lost a few last year so I don't have a lot of stuff to fly. That will free up some of my time to work on stuff like this.

R

I think Scott Clement was working on a document with the low-power pad setup process at one point, and I'd taken some photos following him around for some tasks at one launch, but Scott's not an active entity online, so we might need to get a physical copy from him, digitize it, post it here as a working document, and then folks can then add to it online, perhaps?

I sort of recall that there was something in the works. Anything we have now should be useful, then we can figure out where to go from there. I'm planning to be at the next launch, hopefully we'll get a break from the weather.