Page School 6th Grade Rocketry 2019
- Details
- Published: Thursday, 27 June 2019 19:58
- Written by Claude Maina
We are into our second decade of rocketry at the Page School in West Newbury and we started it off well. This year was one of our better units. The kids were great and really payed attention; the rockets were well built and the launch was great. All aspects of the unit went really well - well, almost all.
The 6th grade had 58 students this year, so we went back to our normal three rocket kits: Thing-a-ma-jig, Razor and Alpha I.The 'new' FlisKits guys were able to get us a bulk package of Thing-a-ma-jig's in plenty of time for the build, and at a good price. I can't tell you what a relief this was. I was really nervous when Jim said he was retiring. But all is looking well with the new FlisKits and Jim should be feeling good. The same three teachers, Brenda Erhardt, John Peterson and John Benvenuti are still part of the 6th grade and have been for all eleven years. Each has been enthusiastic about the rocketry unit from the start and their enthusiasm and efforts have been a 
major reason for its success. Each year there seems to be some occurrence or characterization that best describes the unit that year - which almost always involves glue, usually too much! This year though the kids were pretty good with glue, which made things a lot easier. No, this was the Year of Reaching Orbit! We had several flights on a B6-4 motor with calculated apogees of over 11,000 ft (and I didn't call in a NOTAM)! Pictures are in the Gallery.
The launch, originally scheduled for Saturday, was pushed to Sunday due to high winds and possible rain, and it wasn't looking good for Sunday either. By Saturday evening there was still a chance of rain for Sunday afternoon, but the decision was made to go for it. It was decided not to serve food and set up only one high power pad, in case of a rain-induced shortened launch and need for a quick take down of the launch equipment. It actually turned out to be a pretty decent day, overcast with moderate to strong winds, but no rain and we got a full day of launching in. Late in the day a second high power pad was set up to accommodate the long line of L1 cert flights. We had 141 flights from MicroMax to I, many L1 cert flights with most being successful. One CATO that I remember and one spectacular rocket failure. An H999 Warp 9 motor flew right through the student's rocket, leaving it in pieces at the pad. I guess Elmer's glue is not a good bonding agent for high power flights!
