Rock-it-Girls Girl Scout Model Rocketry Educational Seminar

Rock-it-Girls Scout Launch Saturday July 24th, 2004 at Washington Middle School, Vista, CA.

First Rock-it-Girls Model Rocket Seminar Launch!
The event was run by Scale Rockets with the participation
of the San Diego Girl Scout Council. The cost for seminar materials and instruction was $16 for each girl.

This is what the girls took home with them!
An 8 page booklet, a 3" custom Rocket-it-Girls patch
and a Quest Starhawk streamer recovery rocket.
Of 25 girls signed up, 20 girls attended, completed
their rockets and launched them to receive patches.
The 5 that were not able to attend were sent their
booklets, rockets and patches.

One of the instructional experiments was to blow up a balloon and let it go to teach Newton's 3rd law of motion.
Additional instruction on propulsion, rocket stability aerodynamics was given before rocket assembly.

One of the girls hard at work on her rocket.
The rockets were already partially assembled in order to make it easier. Here the clear tape is being removed from the launch lug that was pre-glued to the body tube.

Another girl getting ready to glue the pre-assembled fin can in the foreground to the body tube.

These girls have finished gluing their fins to the model rocket.

The girls showing the instructors that they have attached their shock cords and streamer to their model rockets.
Emily Coonfield in the beige blouse at the right foreground was our champion at the San Diego Chapter of the Girl Scouts. Without her help and enthusiasm, we would have never been able to pull this off successfully.

Many thanks to the parents who pitched in also to help us keep the girls moving along. Here one of them is checking out the assembled rockets with the nose cones attached.

Another parent helping with the final checkout before decorating the rockets.

The girls then decorated the rockets by applying vinyl stickers and writing their names on the rockets.

This is the first girl to load her rocket for launch!

Here the girls are attaching the igniter clips to the loaded model rockets ready for flight.

Girls were led up to the launch racks in groups by the Range Safety Officer to load and prep their model rockets for launch.

After the rockets were loaded, each group of girls posed for troop girl scout and parent photos by before launching.
Between groups the range was closed and the rockets were launched. When the range was opened again at the start of the next group, the previous group of girls retrieved their rockets form the range.

Each girl brought their own lunch and sat down after the launch to eat and waited to be picked up by their leader or parents. Cold water was provided all day during the event by Scale Rockets

The program finished on time at 12 noon and all the rockets were fired and retrieved successfully!