6.30- Wake-up/showers: same old routine, the councillors and the Indian students woke us up at 6:30. All the boys were awake early and downstairs waiting for the girls. It was a long wait. Our councillor, Jeramy (JerBear) was in charge of the girls wake-up calls and let them sleep in another 15 minutes! Finally the girls arrived downstairs and we went to breakfast.
7.30- Breakfast: breakfast was same old fare except jerbear had brought us a special treat of hot chocolate and marshmallows ^_^
8.00- Space History 1: space history was most likely the least stimulating part of our busy day. We sat around in exhibits etc. Jerbear explained the history of the shuttles and people that have gone into space and developed the rockets. Some of the group lay down and dozed-off.
9.00- Rocket Launch: the rocket launch was very exciting. Jerbear led us through a path in the woods where jokes were made at a certain staff members expense ;) We came onto a huge field. On the field lay stands and a blast shield just in case. There were many primary school kids launching rockets too and it was extremely noisy. Despite the freezing cold weather, (just above zero degrees Celsius) we stood there until everyone of us had launched our groups rockets. Some rockets were a huge success and flew the distance of the field and more, whereas some groups’ rockets didn’t work quite so smoothly with one case of a magically exploding rocket and a rocket with a faulty motor spiralling out of control. Amazingly only one egg payload broke on landing.
10.00- Pamper Pole 1: we arrived at area 51 to meet Chuck, Varner, Jumpman and Redbeard who were the supervisors for the high ropes. The pamper pole they led us too was a 10 metre high pole the diameter of a wooden power line pole with pegs sticking out the side. 1 at a time we climbed the massive pole and got to the top despite the shakiness. Once at the top we dived for a rope dangling in the air with only a few reaching it.
12:00 – MAT: our pamper pole adrenaline rush didn’t end right away as we caught the bus back to the Astro-trek building and had a go on the Multi-Axis Trainers which simulate the motion when a spacecraft spirals out of control. It is basically a random pendulum kind of thing, we will show you a picture later, which spun us around in all different directions.
1.00- Lunch
1.30- Pamper Pole 2: the people who hadn’t climbed in the morning were sent up with the others belaying. Everyone reached the top and Ryan took a whole new perspective on pole dancing. We then had a debrief and everyone praised one another- overall it was exhilerating, fun and we worked brilliantly as a team.
4.30- Aero Design 2: in aero design we took a look at how aircraft are made and we made our own out of polystyrene, we then flew them to see how far we could make them fly, with not much success.
5.30- Dinner: at dinner Jerbear brought us Krispy Kreme doughnuts and overall they tasted like love and happiness in 1 small doughnut.
6.00- Space History 2: in space history 2 we lay under the Saturn 5 rocket and listened to Emily tell us about the shuttles and rockets.
7.30- Applenaut Challenge: this was our final ‘Physical Briefing’ in which we had to design a ‘spacesuit’ to protect an apple. We were given different materials to protect it against: radiation, heat, water and a puncture. This was a good fun way to end our activities.
8.30- Space Bowl: space bowl was a quiz. It was set-up like ‘Jeopardy’ the game show. We had 2 rival teams that consisted of the Indian students. We did very well and we think we won but they won’t confirm it until the graduation tomorrow.
10.30- Bed………………Another huge day in Rocket City!!!
By Rohan and James.
Ps. Huntsville is promoted as ‘Rocket City'.
