Monday, March 30, 2009

Lift Off...almost.

The boys are on Spring break from school this week. We've decided to stick around home this year instead of taking a trip somewhere. Looking at the weather forecast for the week, it looks like that may have been a bad idea! But the boys wanted to stay here and just hang out with friends....so we are....with the idea that we'd do some fun things around town. Yesterday, one of the fun things that we did was rocket launching!

We hiked over to a nearby school where they have a nice open field. As with pretty much every fun thing we do, there was some assembly required. Billy and Bob were trying to get the launching post thing together. I don't know if it's called a launching post, but it works for me....oh wait...I was just told that it's a launch rod...see what I know....not much.

What's this paper thing? Um, guys, those are called instructions. Being guys, they had never heard about instructions before.

Come on, we can just launch this thing...no problem. Well, maybe there is a problem...where does that part go? What about that one?

Bob says...look at this, these here instructions tell us just what to do...cool.

POR VOTRE SECUITE - Veuillez tenir compte que le....geez, these instructions look Greek to me...um Bob, that's French, the English instructions are over on the left side.

Billy thinks that grown-ups are SO weird.

See this guy...he is our safety inspector. He knows all about this rocket launching business, so he's keeping an eye on things.

Let's see, the wind is blowing this way, so we need to aim this launching rod thing at just the right angle this other way... it takes calculating....it's complicated...I think I'll just stick to taking pictures.

Oh dear, it looks like there are some serious faces here. I wonder if something is wrong?

Sure enough...a serious hitch in the plans. The controller appears to need batteries....and guess what....we didn't bring any batteries with us when we walked over. Bummer.

But wait, those two are laughing. Something must be up. Sure enough, Bob happened to have some sort of battery thing with him that would give the rocket pack enough of a charge to ignite. I think he's laughing at us.

Getting those wires attached to the rocket is sort of tricky. It takes a lot of concentration and someone to keep the dog from getting tangled up in the wire...oops, that's my job...hey dog...get over here.

The parachute has been packed. The tissue paper stuff that protects the parachute has been packed. The rocket has been assembled. The wires attached...

The rocket slides down onto the launching rod. It looks like Billy could use some longer pants...or some taller socks....where is that boys mother?

A final adjustment of the launching rod....

Both wires touching the battery pack to send a charge through the wire....

....the charge goes through the wire to ignite the rocket.....

....and we have....we have....we have to wait until tomorrow to see if the launch was successful or not. I love a good suspense story....don't you??


No comments: