We did something totally new here at Casa Fishbowl, we launched a rocket. (!)
This process started a few months ago with a visit to the Hobby House in Vanier. Have you ever been? It’s chock full of great stuff, mostly, er, hobby related wares (hence the name HOBBY HOUSE) but I picked out a cool puzzle and Mark bought himself a model rocket.
Here’s where I confess that I know absolutely nothing about model rocketry, but I do know that Mark was pretty happy about bringing it home. He spent a few evenings assembling it in the basement.
I can share these observations:
- The rocket is reusable. He bought three “engines” to go in his rocket. This makes it good for three launches.
- It has a maximum altitude of 335 meters (1100 feet) and has a little plastic parachute hidden in the cone to enable a safe landing (at least that’s the theory).
- This whole thing solidified my belief that there is a 12-year old boy inside every grown man. (This is not necessarily a bad thing.)
The model didn’t take long to build, but then we had bit of a dilemma. Where in Ottawa does one go to launch a rocket? Especially in the west end? It needed to be a sizeable public space that’s not too close to residential areas/people/trees. We looked at various maps and didn’t come to any satisfactory conclusions but eventually settled on the field behind Dulude arena near Carling and the Queensway. (Note: it’s also very good area for kite-flying.)
And THEN we waited for good weather, and I’m glad we did, because the perfect windless and sunny afternoon practically fell into our laps. We drove over hoping their wasn’t a baseball game going on, plunked ourselves down in the middle of the field, and watched the chief builder get ready for liftoff.
It was pretty darn exciting. The golden afternoon, the plush grass under my feet, the rocket burning a trail up, up, up into the sky. I certainly understand the appeal now.
Emma nabbed a video of the first launch for posterity. (Yes, that’s me shrieking.)
It was so exciting that it wasn’t until afterwards that I remembered to be afraid. Oy. What if the thing tipped over and launched sideways? I shudder to think about it. That being said, please be cautious if you decide to try building and launching your own model rockets!
Sidebar: Here’s the thing about doing these kinds of activities with kids; you can include as much or as little of the science as you want. You know when you blow up a balloon you pinch it at the end, and if you let go it moves really fast, zig zagging everywhere until it’s run out of air? Well, that’s essentially what’s happening when you are launching a rocket, but bigger and heavier rockets need fuel to achieve liftoff and overcome gravity. Cool stuff eh?
