***RE-POSTPONED***

Due to ongoing red flag fire conditions, we will be unable to conduct our launch in Amesbury on the 16th of November. We will see what we can do to reschedule in December.

To make it absolutely clear, CMASS does not allow "sparky" motors at any of our launches.

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Page School Rocketry 2018

Details
Published: Wednesday, 15 August 2018 08:18
Written by Claude Maina

launch 20180815 1722521292This was our tenth year of rocketry at the Page School, a definite milestone! It was also our smallest class size - 44 students; but the same three teachers, Brenda Erhardt, John Peterson and John Benvenuti. Because of the small size and the particulars of the 6th grade organization this year, we went with only one rocket kit, instead of the normal three. The one kit was an obvious choice, our workhorse - the Thing-a-ma-jig! Oh, are we going to miss Jim!!

The unit is as it has been for many years. It starts with a 'prebuild session', where a few students stay after school and help assemble parachutes, streamers, motor packets and photocopying. The second is a day of practicing the use of the Estes Altitrack and stop watch. The third being the build and rocketry lesson and finally, and the most fun, launch day. 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 it was the opposite - Year of the Missing or Non-Setting Glue! Not a catchy title but it works. The unit was actually held during the first week in June, but it was a busy summer and I just got around to the article now. Pictures are in the Gallery.

Read more: Page School Rocketry 2018

July 19, 2018 English Language Center

Details
Published: Wednesday, 25 July 2018 18:25
Written by Claude Maina

elc launch 20180725 1163427111
The English Language Center (ELC) is an English Language school for international high school students. They are based in Boston but have programs in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Their summer program in Boston is at MIT and serves about 125 students with English classes in the mornings and more typical camp activities in the afternoon. Since it is at MIT, there is a Science camp that includes an introduction to model rocketry. For the past few years CMASS has helped them with launching the rocket kits that they have built.

There were 18 students this year and would be launching for 90 minutes at the School Street field in Acton. As usual, we use the launch equipment from the Page School. I and Alex set up three launch pads, which was more than enough. The students this year were mostly from China and Japan with a few from South America. They had built either the Razor (Custom Rockets) or the Thing-a-ma-jig (FlisKits). The first couple of years that we helped out, the rockets were in good shape and flew well. The quality had dropped over the next few years with this year being the most problematic. There were a number of rockets with fins attached with masking tape and others with motor mounts inserted (not glued!) into the body tube. Needless to say, we had a number of lawn darts, core samples and very interesting flights! I suspect that the person running the activity the first couple of years had rocketry experience but not so recently! The kids had a great time though! There are some pictures in the Gallery.

I suspect we will be helping out at the build session next year as well!

  1. Joint MMMSC Launch - 07 July 2018
  2. April 21, 2018 Launch in Amesbury