Page School Rocketry 2016
- Details
- Published: Thursday, 19 May 2016 07:49
- Written by Claude Maina
The Year of Discombobulations. That's probably the best way to describe this year's Rocketry Unit for the 6th grade at the John C. Page School in West Newbury - our eighth year. As usual, the unit is spread out over a week, starting with a pre-build session after school. There is also a day of practicing the use of an Estes Altitrack and stop watch; a day of building and finally - launch day. There are only 58 kids in the 6th grade this year, down from 78 the year before and the smallest group we've had so far. John had been warning me all year long about this year's 6th grade. That this group was going to be a challenge - some behavior issues but mostly just not being on top of things. Although John says that every year, so I take it with a grain of salt. This year though he was right - not so much behavior, the kids were great in that regard, but they were definitely not on top of things. And that may have rubbed off on us, because it seemed as if we (especially me) were not quite on top of things either this year. The first discombobulation was that, because of various reasons, we were going to be short-staffed throughout the unit (#1). This meant that I was going to be taking the pictures - a bad omen right at the beginning. You can view my attempts in the Gallery.
Our first launch of the 2016 season was this past Saturday and was great day. I know that technically, the first launch of 2016 was the winter follies back in Jan; but for me the winter's got to be over for the launch season to start. We had a rain delay of about an hour; but once the field was set up, there was virtually no wind until about 1:00. The afternoon had moderate winds from different directions, and was overcast most of the afternoon, but still a great day.
