More fun than a barrel of rockets!

The Boys & Girls Club of Greater Nashua loves having extra fun with the Merrimack program.  This session (September and October) has a mix of kids from several different skill levels so we built the Thing-a-ma-Jig for the beginners and the Tri-Glide for the more advanced students.  In addition to this, the second half of this session was spent on learning how to carve pumpkins for the upcoming Holoween festivities.

All in all the kids and their teacher (me) had a ball with this very different class.  The Tri-Glide was a real challenge for the kids.   What I do is to put them through the exercise of cutting out all of the very small fins and other small parts needed for this rocket.  Then, to make the final product work as well as is possible, just before we attach these items, I produce a bag full of the parts pre-cut that they can choose to use if their parts didn't come out that great.   That way they at least have the experience of cutting these tiny parts but don't get too frustrated if they don't come out "just right"

Also, the pumpkin carving was a new experience for these kids.  I have a unique method of carving pumpkins where you just carve away a small layer of skin, leaving the pumpkin meat in place.  When lit with a light bulb you get a dramatic effect of the light traveling through the meat (due to the high water content) but being blocked by the skin.  I developed this technique in the early 1970's and have been enjoying it ever since, though this is one of the few times I have taught this to such young kids.

The results were fantastic and the kids really enjoyed the new project.  You can see their carvings at the end of this album.

Parents, the school and the Boys & Girls Clubs organization can get high resolution versions of any of these images by sending me an email request.

On the left you will find thumbnail images of our adventures in rocketry.  Click on a thumbnail to bring up a full size image here.

Enjoy!