Friday, December 01, 2006

Fourth Meeting: Potato Gun and Target

Today we shot a target with the potato gun. A lot. At least, we tried a lot. :)

But first we tried launching little match rockets... and we kinda failed. That was pretty, uh, experimental... as in, I had never done it before and barely even knew how to do it. Well, it engaged a lot of people for much of the club block, so apparently there was something interesting about it. Or maybe it was just the matches.

(UPDATE: Willy tells me they gave up on the match rockets and just made a giant match instead. So it was just the matches. Guys, you should have soaked the paper towl in hairspray. It would've been a lot easier to catch on fire.)

Once Vivek returned with a camera we set up the target, leaving a few people behind still playing with the matches. Craig, marksman extraordinaire (he alone hit the improvised target of 'a bag' in our first meeting) took the first shot... and it was a good one. The wood immediately cracked, and the bracing boards on the back popped right off. (One of those boards would soon become the match group's giant match.)

Our next few shots weren't so successful. For the first time, we had two potato guns operating simultaneously. We never got to shoot them at the same time - Ms. Nickerson wouldn't let us (no clue why) - but it made things go much more quickly. We soon branched out from our normal potato ammunition and threw some yogurt and pudding into the mix. Our first few shots missed, but we got some good ones in there. Craig also made a triumphant return, this time punching a hole straight through the target.

Emily closed off with a very nice bulls-eye, splattering pudding all over. That was the last of our hits - we only had three - and the only one to really splatter stuff on the board. On most shots, we pretty much just splattered the makeshift "road" to the construction site.

We closed off by talking a bit about our plans for the future. We all agree that the next meeting should be dedicated to just blowing stuff up, plain and simple. But what comes after that? Building radios? Steam-powered boats? Rocket planes? Speak up! We need your feedback!

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