Summer program offers surprise cooling

Sunbathers might have been slightly alarmed Friday morning when a series of water bottle rockets went off in their vicinity, but those taking in the rays in the field behind the Women's Building at Oregon State University had no cause for alarm. The rockets made a lot of noise and created an impressive spray of exploding water, but the experimental bottles didn't make it very far from their launch point.

The students who set off the rocket were taking part in OSU's pre-college summer program, Adventures in Learning. The Water Bottle Rocketry class combined a number of disciplines, from chemistry and physics to mathematics.

"This is your rocket, so get ready to launch it," shouted Franklin Middle School science teacher Marcus Beck to student Erin Sargent. Beck placed the student's hand-made water bottle rocket onto a pump and was filling it with 40 pounds of air pressure.

The students scattered into a diamond shape on the field ready to watch where the rocket landed, and to get a cooling spray as the rocket launched over their heads. The first rocket made an impressive sound as it flew through the air, but it quickly crashed in the field.

"Water master, we need some cleanup over here," Beck called, as they scrambled to get the pump ready for the next launch.

Next up was Marisa Thierheimer's rocket.

"This is a pretty nice looking one," he told the group. "She's got her weights off to the side instead of in the end of the bottle."

The rocket launched well but then veered sharply left. After the launches, the girls held their rockets and examined the damage.

"Ours failed," Sargent said, looking down at her rocket, which had broken into bits.

"I put stones inside and glued them," Sargent said. But the stones came loose during the launch, throwing off the weight and causing the rocket to go off course. The purpose of the experiment was to get the rockets to land in the same spot three times consecutively, but Sargent was taking hers back to the drawing board.

Thierheimer's plans also went awry.

"I tried to place the fins evenly," she said, but they weren't in quite the right position. She also glued weights on the sides of the bottle rather than placing them in the bottom. She too, decided to forgo a second launch, and headed back inside.

Beck said the class was all about problem solving, creativity, innovation and collaboration. It also was about trying and failing and trying again. Friday was an experimental day, enabling the students to identify flaws in their rockets and then adapt them accordingly. In another week, the results of their hard work will show, and Beck was excited to see the results.

"You should come back next Friday!"