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Event – The Amateur
Spaceflight Association was invited by the After Blast Program at Killough Middle School (Alief ISD - Southwest Houston) to host a two-day
aerospace education program On April 21 and 22 for 7th and 8th
grade students. Five volunteers from
ASA spent two days with the students, teaching them about physics and
rockets. Over 40 students and
teachers from Killough Middle School participated in the
event. Day one was spent in the
classroom, where the students first learned from ASA volunteers and were
introduced to the upcoming activities, and then they broke into small teams
for hands-on education via building a small rocket. One day two, the students launched their
rockets behind the school under the guidance of ASA. This event was a complete success –
everyone had fun, and all the rockets flew high (and safely).
Killough students working on their rocket
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Nic
Radford and Killough students moments after ignition
Contest – In addition to
building the rockets, the teams were also modifying their kits to answer a
challenge given them by ASA. Each team
was to design their rocket to stay in the air the longest after
launching. This meant that the
rocket needed to fly as high as possible, and needed to have a good
recovery system (to slow the rocket’s decent). Each student in the winning team received
their own rocket kit to take home.
Results – All of the student’s rockets flew
well, and many of the teams modified their rockets in very creative ways:
such as making the fins more streamlined to reduce drag, using the bag the
kit came in to add drag-creating streamers, and making the connection
between the weight of the parachute and the height of the rocket’s
flight. The ASA volunteers were very
pleased to see such creativity and interest in the students.
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Thanks – The Amateur Spaceflight Association wishes
to thank Killough Middle School for inviting us to host this activity, the
students who worked hard, and our sponsors – without whose support,
ASA would not be able to perform such worthwhile events.
Killough students holding the ASA
TLV-7 Rocket
The preceding picture shows many of the Killough students holding an
ASA rocket. ASA brought along their
TLV-7 rocket as a prop to use while talking about rockets. Additional pictures from the event are available
here.
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