Spring Quarter, 2008
March 15th, NARCON Convention
Finally, NARCON! After four months of waiting, planning and building we departed the church on Saturday, March 15th headed west in Jim Dimock's van for Rochester, site of the National Association of Rocketry Convention - NARCON. Once at the convention site located in the historic Kahler Hotel, the plans were to shop for kits, attend a seminar or two, then leave for the sport launch area so we could fly our our rockets including the big club rocket we had been building since January.
Shopping for rocket kits.
We arrived at the hotel at about 9am, signed in, received our convention materials, browsed the dealer arena then built a rocket at the Make and Take Seminar. The person leading this seminar read our name badges and asked if Good Shepherd was an LCMS school so we said YES! He was glad to hear that because he was a teacher at Eau Claire Lutheran school in Eau Claire WI and also taught rocketry to his 7th and 8th graders.
Make and Take seminar. Photo by Gak Chamdak
After lunch we attended another seminar about very small rockets called Micro Maxx rockets. These rockets only fly to a height of 50 to 100 feet. This was interesting because we have flown this kind of rocket before but not these particular models. The kits on display could very well be future build projects for the club.
MicroMaxx rocket seminar.
We left this seminar a little early so we could reach the Maple Island sport launch area in time with the club built rocket - The Onyx - Oscar's Blue Ninja and Bullpup and Mark's AIM-4 Falcon. Unfortunatley, due to the cold, windy weather and muddy grounds the launch closed earlier than advertised and we arrived in time to see everyone else leaving! Launch scrubbed!
The club-built rocket - The Onyx. Paint design inspried by Oscar Garcia.
Discouraged we headed for home. Then Jim made the suggestion to launch our rockets at church instead. This great idea cheered everybody up! Then Mark said Dakota Meadows would be a better location because the school has large grass fields. So we flew the rockets we made earlier in the day, Oscar's Blue Ninja and Mark's AIM-4 Falcon. We plan to launch the club rocket again sometime this summer at Maple Island because the launch folks heard about our story and invited us to fly then.
Flight prep at Dakota Meadows. Photo by Jim Dimock
We are thankful to God for delivering us safetly to and from the convention and for inspiring hope when things didn't go as expected.
Winter Quarter, 2008
The next club meeting is February 9th, 9am-12pm.
At this meeting we will start building the club rocket- a LOC Onyx- for the launch at NARCON 08, March 16th or if you have a kit to build, please bring it. We will also go over plans for a rocketry demonstation day and fundraising events for the summer.
November, 2007
We are going to NARCON!
The National Assoication of Rocketry will hold it's annual convention at the Kehler Hotel in Rochester on March 14-16, 2008.
from the narcon2008.org webstie: ""NARCON is an annual convention held by the NAR for the purposes of educating those interested in all aspects of hobby rocketry. Events include keynote speakers, training seminars, workshops, rocket-building sessions, open discussion forums, a sport launch, and much more!
Covered topics include technical sessions on all levels of rocketry from beginner to advanced, competition, educational aspects, safety, design and more.
Honored Guests - Vern & Gleda Estes
All rocketeers are invited to attend!""
The cost to attend the convention is $15 for kids and $35 for adults if you register before February 5, 2008. The cost for the sport launch on Saturday is $10 per person at the launch site.
November fundraising event - C&S Supply's 50th Anniversary Sale
On Saturday, November 3rd the entire club turned out to help sell hot dogs at C&S Supply. It was their 50th Anniversary Sale and we were busy all day. Thanks to C&S for letting us have the entire proceeds. Our rockets on display attracted kids and even prompted parents to share their rocketry stories from their younger days.
The goal of the fundraiser was to use the profits for buying rocket kits. Here we are building at the November 10th meeting:
Spring 2007
First club drag race event, April 30, 2007.
First club launch event of the season, April 16, 2007.
The successes in this launch were many. This is the first rocket assembly for all club members. All had not even put together a model of any kind until joining the club last month. Of all five rockets launched none were damaged and all were recovered. This is especially exciting because during the building process several chances for mistakes were possible but everyone avoided them.
The most important lesson we learned today was how a parachute is similar to baptism. A parachute safely delivers the rocket back to ground so that it is undamaged. Through baptism God will deliver us from death to Himself in Heaven so that we can live with Him forever.
Proud rocketeers ready on the launch pad.
Jill's rocket is too fast for the camera.
Riding the breeze under a nice parachute.
Looks like her rocket is headed for a roof but, thankfully, it fell well short.
Walker's rocket just under ignition
A full canopy means a happy recovery.
Photos by Mark Wilkowske
