Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Meeting Recaps

Thirteenth Meeting (April 20, 2007)

Ms. Nickerson and I ran clubs alone, since Peter and Vivek were off getting tuxedos fitted.

We made speakers out of wire and magnets, using a borrowed iPod as a sound source, and some other people tried to make electric motors. And some of us just had fun standing donut magnets up on edge on the table and rolling others around, making the stood-up ones spin nicely.

In our last meeting, one club member had conceived of an entirely new class of rocket: the Nocka Rocket, a.k.a. a hollow tinfoil tube with a pinched-off nose and a rocket jammed inside. This meeting, we actually went through with it. First we used a C-engine, and launched it out of the PVC launch tube. I didn’t even see the launch, ‘cause I was running through the play structure to get to Nocka and help him with the feisty igniter when he got it to work. But I saw it in mid-air! It spun some, dove, “pop”ed and smoked.

Then we went back inside and did another one, only with a D engine instead. This one I did see. I launched it (again from the PVC tube), it spun, it dove, it exploded with a nice burst of flame. The end, time for lunch.

Fourteenth Meeting (April 27, 2007)

Finally, we build bridges! Or try, anyway. In truth, after we split up into two groups, we never got far beyond the planning phase. We intended to continue in the next meeting, but we ended up having to take a break because of club member absences and such.

Fifteenth Meeting (May 4, 2007)

Hey, May the Fourth be with you!

We prepared three rockets. One was a long, thin, sleek black thing that Brendan found in The Closet. The second was a classic Nocka Rocket, only with a special plastic Charzard nose cone (which we lost). The third was a glider rocket that Brendan found and, with help, assembled. The first went off nicely, like so:


Video: BSEC 06-07: 15th Meeting: Rocket Launch

The second did what our made-from-scratch rockets normally do: launch, spin, nose-dive, explode. And the third we didn't have a chance to launch. That'll have to wait until another meeting.

Other than that? Umm, well, I do think I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what. Oh, we had Tootsie Pops, I think. But no, there was something else...

Sixteenth Meeting (May 11, 2007)

This Friday was a special schedule day, thanks to it being the Seniors' last day. (Congratulations to them, by the way!) As such, we had only about half the time we usually have--and half the attendance, too. We played briefly with LEGO MindStorms robots, mainly having them smash into each other so wee could see which one was stronger. It's fun to watch the wheels skitter about when they've been knocked off but remain wired to the control box.

Aside from that, we continued preparing our second glider rocket of the year.