I attend rocket camp...

Campers hard at work on a 3" BMS School Rocket (Click to enlarge).

I had the privilege of attending the Hope Christian Academy Rocket Camp this past Friday. Imagine 9 highly motivated kids spending a week devoted totally to rocketry - they covered a great many aspects of the hobby, progressing from stomp rockets to water rockets to model rockets to mid power birds. Along the way they learned the basics of rocket physics and how to use Open Rocket to design their own models. By the time I showed up Friday morning, they had advanced sufficiently far to breeze through the construction of the Balsa Machining 3" School Rocket, and were eager to show me some of their Open Rocket designs. To say I was impressed would be an understatement - one student knew Open Rocket better than I, and he revealed a beautifully rendered simulation of a rocket resembling the old Centuri Taurus. Several of the class plan to be on the Hope Rising TARC team, and so there were also some designs for this year's TARC rocket. It will be interesting to see which one makes the final cut (the team, when assembled, votes on the design that will be used during the season). I thought it appropriate that the members of the camp referred to themselves as "RPGs" (Rocket Powered Geniuses) - they even came up with a camp logo:

My rendition of the Hope 2018 Rocket Camp logo (Click to enlarge).

My progress on builds has been good - I have finished the first rocket on my 2018 build list, a clone of the Centuri Javelin. The Javelin was my first rocket, built and flown 50 years ago, and I had to have another one to commemorate the anniversary. The build was very straightforward, and it marks the first time I have used decals made with my inkjet printer. Past efforts with inkjet decals were pretty ugly, and so I resorted to printing my decals on the color laser printer at work. However, the colors are not as vivid as I would wish, and the toner is often low, so I thought I would try printing with my new HP Envy. The decals came out well, with better color saturation - A successful experiment for once!

Centuri Javelin clone in 1971 catalog decor
(Click to enlarge).

I have started construction on my first Geezer TARC rocket for 2019  - details to follow in another post.