ALA Museum Day, October 6

The agenda for the day was a reintroduction to stomp rockets. Some of the kids have done this before and some have not. This seemed to be a good idea for the day because a few of the kids will be helping out doing stomp rockets during the actual Mindfest event. The group today was divided into random pairs, and then they were shown a demonstration of how to make a rocket by Bill Voss. The students were given 3 objectives - they were to each build a working rocket, then they were hack that rocket to make it faster, fly longer, better, etc., and they were to pay close attention to what worked for them and what needed improvement for a discussion at the end of the session. THe students were able to make use of the new studio space inside the Invention At Play gallery today - this involved the public getting a chance to see the students at work, and there were quite a few visitors to some by and watch the fun. I was able to take some pictures of the day's events, which should get uploaded soon.
The pairs were given the opportunity to fly each of their rockets, in a minor competition to see whose would fly the farthest. We went outside into the courtyard for that. The teams and the flight lengths were quite varied, with two of the teams making rockets that flew at least 100 feet. They would have flown farther, but the rockets hit the building first. We then brought the kids back inside to the studio space to debrief, have the SO WHAT moment. I wanted the students to verbalize what worked for them and what did not, as well as what they improved on their rockets. If i had been thinking better, i would have had the students make the first rocket, then launch it outside, then come back in and begin the hacking process, to better their creation. I did like the fact that visitors were interested in what we were doing inside the IAP space, however. The students were able to verbalize that weighing down the nose of the rocket helped to stabilize it. They also spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of wings, and anything else that added too much weight. Wings proved to be more of a detriment to everyone in the flight length department, but one group actually made a glider with long wings. It flew in circles, instead of straight ahead - very creative!! Too much tape was not a good thing to the rockets, and the students also remarked that the blowing wind was a big factor in the flight as well. All in all, a very good day!
Jonathon