Last summer my neighbors spent some time building rockets, and launching them off with their children. What I appreciate the most about this is the willingness to work with children to show them how cool, easy, and fun science can be. I was also intrigued by the really cool use of technology in documenting the rocket launches. I asked my neighbor, Gus Lessing to explain to me the materials used so I could share with everyone just how easy this is.
Describe in your own words your project.
We strapped some cameras to a hobby rocket to see what happened. The results were way more positive than I thought they would be. We learned about thrust, Initial impulse, The effects of wind, and what we look like from the sky!
What products/materials did you need to use to complete with project?
Remember to get motors!!! For that set, the B motors are ok – C motors are too strong and might lose the cameras.
Two 808 hd cameras, each with 1 GB memory.
Some Duct Tape.
Velcro Patches
Microsoft Movie Maker (free)
Why did you use the time, effort, and resources to complete the project?
Rocketry in and of itself has limited appeal to kids. I wanted to make rocketry that much more interesting to my kids. It worked!
Who else was involved in the project. What role did they serve?
Christa (10 year old) – assembled rocket and read all the manuals. The other kids gradually became more involved as the project got more “famous”.
On launch day the kids did assembly, setup on the launches, rocket retrieval, and laughing.
Dad did the purchasing, camera mounting, video creation and editing.
If you could do it all again, what would you do differently?
Nothing. It was a good way to start, Inexpensive and easy.
The results look pretty stellar. I hope to join in this year with my son Jax who should be three by then. I’ve also been pushing Gus to see if we can utilize a weather ballon to raise a camera up in to the sky to map our neighborhood on Google Maps.
We’ll be sure to document whatever we do.
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