Tag: NASA Johnson Space Center

Saturday, Day 2 For Houston Rockets 2017-Recap and Sunday’s Schedule

Today, Saturday, the SystemsGo team had seven schools and twenty rockets to launch on this, their normal full day of launching at the Houston location. It was a productive day, albeit a long and tiring day for the team at the range. The action finally ended and the Livestream shut down about 9:15 this evening.

Weather at the site was sunny with only slight clouds and some wind. Reports from recovery members say it was a beautiful day for launching rockets.

Phil and Rebekah had a very special guest at Mission Control today. Norman Chaffee, retired Deputy Director of NASA Johnson Space Center, was there.He consults with some of the schools in the area on their rockets and STEM programs. In the interview today, he remembered coming to Fredericksburg in the early days of these launches to consult with Brett Williams, program founder, on safety and logistics. It was a genuinely interesting interview as he recounted all his work history through the years with the space program, all the way to where he is now retired and helping young high school students learn.

Later in the day, Phil took time to talk to Christy Bible Glass about her history and how she came to work for SystemsGo. Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear much of hers because my system crashed on my phone and computer about that time, which is why the quality of her picture is so bad, and she appears to have a monocle over one of her glasses. Sorry about that Christy, maybe you can say you were practicing for the upcoming Pirates movie. “Arrgh!”

What I was able to hear and see was a really nice and interesting interview.

In spite of issues on my part, the team still had a great day on the range. Here are a few of the better screen grabs I managed to get today.

The rest of today’s screen shots will be posted on Facebook at the following address for public sharing:

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471968966157563&type=3

The link below is screen shots from yesterday’s action at the range. Chelsea Burow, pad operator, may add more to either of these albums later. I know she took some really nice pictures from the pad.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471692176185242.100000334203350&type=3&uploaded=36

Apparently students, teachers, parents and other humans were not the only spectators watching the rockets. This fellow was sent in by recovery team member, Steve Burrow.

The current launch schedule for Sunday is shown below and may also be downloaded from SystemsGo website at the following address:  http://www.systemsgo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flight-Schedule-Rockets-2017-Houston-4-4-17-.2.pdf

Sunday, May 22, 2016
School
Name		 # 1st Level
Tsiolkovsky		 # 2nd Level
Oberth
Booker T. Washington HS
Dr. Nghia Le		 1 1
Northstar High School
Alan Stone		 2 1
Schools Launching    2
Totals 3 2
May 22nd Total Rockets 5

Public access is available at this new site this year. A map to the location as well as directions are available at the SystemsGo Events page found here:

 http://www.systemsgo.org/events/

There will also be Livestream from there again this year so friends and family can watch the action online, provided by Phil Houseal  and Zach Pooser .

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Zach and Phil provide a great experience for both viewers at home and the students and team on site while helping to bolster the STEM program. Allowing the public to share in the actions and see what these students are accomplishing as they apply all they have learned and continue to learn from their launch results helps SystemsGo to grow interest in the future of the STEM program and the hands on approach to learning.

Please remember that since there is pubic access to this event this year,  there are tickets for order and those may be found on the SystemsGo website as well at this link: https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org .Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.

Fall Highlights (Oct. 1-Nov. 18)- Fredericksburg’s STEM/Rocket Program

It is mid November and time to  review once more all that the Fredericksburg High School STEM Academy has been working on throughout the past seven weeks.  Each group has new skills they are learning, goals they are working to achieve and events they are working towards.

During the month of October the Freshman visited Caterpillar Manufacturing,  where  Warren Houston, Caterpillar plant manager, acted as the groups’ host during their tour.  They also toured Aqua Power Cutting, where owner BJ Millard showed them around and gave demonstrations.  Mr. Millard’s two sons have both participated in the STEM Academy.

The following photo is from their visit to Caterpillar Manufacturing.

caterpillar-tour

On Monday November 21, they will visit  Toyota, Center for the Intrepid, and Southwest Research Institute (SwRi).

They have also been learning about Electrical Engineering. Keith Kunz a representative of Teledyne, formerly Real Time Systems, was on site Thursday, November 10 for subject presentations.

The juniors have been studying aerodynamic drag, resistance, and impulse momentum theory.  They are completing work on the test stand burn models and the associated fuel grain burn simulations. After this they will be moving on to new heights, attempting to reach 1900 feet on  C6-Estes motors in Generation 3 rockets.  These rockets are designed using the same RockSim software used to design rockets they will launch at Willow City next year. This is a lesson in design and construction and each must match identically their design.

The  whole senior group made a trip to  NASA Johnson Space Center on Monday and Tuesday, November 7 and 8. Only two were unable to attend, one due to family complications and the other was attending State Marching Contest on Monday with the FHS Band but joined the group later.

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On Monday they collectively made a Grant Presentation to NASA. Mr. Matthes reports that, “they did wonderfully.”

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On Tuesday,  Ian  Kendrick,  Sterling Weaterford,  Nathan Bain and David Becker presented a flight readiness profile. “NASA was impressed with test-stand updates and the focus on analysis and improved data acquisition,” according to Mr. Matthes.

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They also toured Johnson Space Center.

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Students had time for fun while in Houston as well.  On Monday,  after dinner, students spent time at Kemah Boardwalk. Interestingly the “Crane Game” was the entertainment of the evening, pitting them against each other to see who could pluck the most stuffed animals.  Reportedly, Ricky Robles was the winner.

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Those not involved in Tuesday’s presentation went to Space Center Houston where a good time was had by all.

image2   image1

The STEM Academy would like to extend many thanks to Mr. Logan Minshew, FHS Counselor and CTE coordinator. He took the time to attend this field trip and drive the group.

In other senior news, even though there is still quite a bit more to be done on test-stand, they have made good strides and are progressing forward diligently. They are back at work with rocket design as well.

In a related note, Mr. Matthes reports that they held their first Engineering Advisory Committee meeting on Friday, November 11. Members present were Brian Evans (Space Propulsion Group), Jay Mallinckrodt (Heartland Enterprises), and Scott Netherland (SystemsGo). Mark Cornett, Allen Nance (Teledyne), Luke Morin (SRM Manufacturing), and Logan Minshew (FHS Career and Technology Coordinator) were unable to attend.

This article is the third in a new series of monthly updates that will follow the Fredericksburg STEM Academy/Rocket program. This school is a participant of the SystemsGo STEM program. This series of articles is intended to support, encourage, and challenge students in the program as they share their working status and accomplishments throughout the year in the program. These publications will be available for tags and re-posting.

www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org . Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.