Thursday evening, 20 December 2018, I attended an Oracle School Board meeting to discuss the Mountain Vista Elementary School Model Rocket Program that I had suggested for the school for this academic year. This photo shows some displays set up for the Board members to see:

One of the students gave a presentation to the Board:

Photos by Ms Formo, Mountain Vista School

During this semester the students heard a talk by a retired NASA rocket engineer, learned the history and technology of rockets, and assembled six Estes "Alpha" rockets. On 11 and 13 December we had our first launches from the school. Six successful launches and recoveries!

Photos by Ms Formo, Mountain Vista School

View a video (12 MB) of one of their rocket launches and recovery by clicking the image below. The video will appear in a new window.

click for video

The school will be building and launching larger and multistage Estes rockets during the Spring 2019 semester.

When I proposed the Model Rocket Program to the school in the summer of 2018 I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Estes Rockets was still in business. I had launched their rockets when I was a teenager back in the early 1960s. I photographed one of my launches using a box camera with 120 roll film:

Photo by Mike Weasner

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