FORT WORTH -- Rockets made by young science students Friday didn't make it into outer space, but at least one sailed over a campus fence and landed in the yard of a house across the street.
The students were participating in a space camp at Dunbar Middle School, and they yelled a countdown before their rockets blasted off from the football field, speeding off the launchpad at about 75 mph.Powered by an engine designed by a model rocket company, the rockets whooshed high in the air, then deployed a parachute and floated back to the ground.Organizers hope that the two-day camp, which tasked students with building rockets and creating roving robots, will capitalize on their interest in science and lead them to consider careers in science, math, technology, engineering and robotics."We hope that one day, you'll be the ones to go to Mars," event organizer Veronica E. Williams told the students. "Somebody in this group is going to change the world. Is it going to be you?"Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders enrolled in Dunbar Middle's science, technology and math curriculum participated in the camp, along with fifth-graders from Moss, Logan, Walton and Sunrise-McMillan elementary schools. Students in Dunbar High School's aviation technology and engineering programs acted as mentors.The children spent Friday morning working in teams with two educators from the visitors center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. They crafted rockets using paper towel rolls and other materials and built remote-control robots.One team struggled a little as the students created a mount to hold the engine inside the rocket. First, team members had to poke a hole in heavy cardboard and fasten on a hook. "This is probably the hardest part of building the whole rocket, just poking that hole," space educator Rachel Dues told the group.Kalesha Clakely, 10, said she wasn't concerned about whether her team's rocket would make it off the launchpad (it did)."It was our first experience, and we can just try it again," said Kalesha, a fifth-grader at Logan Elementary who wants to become a brain surgeon. "This has been a really cool camp."The robot project was based on the Mars rover Curiosity. Each robot had to be able to move, turn and pick something up. Students had almost 90 minutes to develop a design using movable parts, lights and sensors and to build the robot, said Dave Brown, a space educator.Team Freshmen, composed of eighth-graders looking forward to high school, made a robot that could move its head and open its jaws to pick up a paper wad meant to represent Martian rocks."The rover on Mars, it picks up rocks and sends pictures to NASA. We tried to do something similar but in a smaller version," said Martha Dominguez, 13, a Dunbar Middle School eighth-grader. "We looked at the pieces of the robot and analyzed where to put them. It worked."Both projects help teach teamwork and problem-solving -- critical skills for high school, college and the workplace, said Howard Robinson, principal at Dunbar Middle."It's been proven that the more they can put their hands on and problem-solve and work in groups, the better they learn," Robinson said. "We don't want the kids just memorizing things. We want them to learn it and know it."Jessamy Brown, 817-390-7326Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
