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It has been a while since we have built and launched our rockets, and while we were cleaning out our closet I found a bunch of them again. When the kids saw them, they wanted to give it a try again, and so we did. I don't have any photos of the events for the building of the rocket, so you will have to make due with the launching of them. |
| When we were out in Oracle helping Barbara clean out some junk, she had a bunch of rockets in varying stages of building that she wanted to get rid of. We gladly took them and put them in our closet and there they stayed for a few years. |
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There was a one (Alpha) rocket that was complete and the kids took to the construction with some help. We marked the rocket, glued, and painted the rocket with the kids choosing the color scheme. In addition to that we went through the rest of the rockets in the closet and in a little time we had 4 ready to fly. When we were still in Arkansas, I found myself in walmart and on their clearance rack there was a bunch of rocket engines that were all marked $1.00. So I purchased all of the ones that they had left, but I have not had a chance to put them to use. |
| This event was to be they were to be put to use, but I forgot them in the top of the closet when we finally arrived at the launching field. I think this was Landen's first attempt with the flying of Rockets - and he really seemed to enjoy them. He was right in the middle of the entire operation, but he didn't want to push the button to fire off one. Rachel was similar to him, as she thought they were too loud. She would cover her ears every time they were to shoot off. |
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Karalyn also came up to visit us the same weekend that we decided to shoot off the rockets. The kids had soccer games in the morning and in the afternoon we went back to the soccer fields and played with the rockets. The wind was blowing from the west, so we went to the west of the field and angled the rockets into the wind. |
| The Alpha (seen here) flew great. In fact we had no problems with any of the flights of the rockets. They all actually flew with out incident. The only two problems that we encountered, and they were both on the landing. On one occasion, the Alpha drifted across the entire field and landed in the top of a 15 foot tall tree that Ethen had to climb to climb and retrieve, and then we put a little larger engine in a one of the bigger rockets and it drifted across the field, and down half the block and landed in a tree. |
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This time it landed in the top of a 25-30 foot tall mesquite tree, and this tree had been trimmed such that there were no branches low to climb up. I thought about going and getting a ladder to try to access it, but it looked taller than my tallest ladder. I figured that a $15 rocket wasn't worth a broken bone so we left it there. On a weekly basis when we head back over to the park for soccer games we drive the alley and scan the top of the tree, and on a weekly basis it is still there. Sad, but it seems the price of admission for flying rockets is loosing them. |
| That was the last one that we flew that day, and we haven't been back since. The wind seemed to keep picking up the longer we were there, until finally we lost a rocket as it drifted away. |
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| This rocket here that Kyle is holding is the one that we lost. One of the kids would shoot it off and the rest would run out and try to retrieve them as they landed. It was fun to see them try to negotiate the landing place. Routinely then would go far out, and then run back toward us as the parachute would deploy. Then they would run back to where they first were and the wind would carry them further and further away. |  |
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Here you can see Rachel plugging her ears as we are getting ready to launch another one off. I don't really know why I have always liked doing this, but ever since I was in about 6th grade I have been building and launching these little rockets. I still enjoy doing it. It is fun to watch the crowds of people gather around every time we find ourselves in the mist of rocketerring. |