Phase III of WASA Rocketry (Waimea High’s Aeronautical & Space Academy) is by far the most advanced and complex part of model rocketry that the students will be engaged in this school year, said Jerry Nishihira, one of the instructors
Phase III of WASA Rocketry (Waimea High’s Aeronautical & Space Academy) is by far the most advanced and complex part of model rocketry that the students will be engaged in this school year, said Jerry Nishihira, one of the instructors at Waimea High School.
“In the third, and final, part of our hands-on project learning tool, the students are to design and test for flight-worthiness and stability on a computer simulator, measure for weight and balance, center of pressure, center of gravity, paint, then launch and recover before actual building begins,” explained Nishihira.
This high-tech computer program is called Rock-Sim.
Once building and construction begins, teachers Nishihira and Brian Charnigo basically are spectators, and the students must rely on their journals and past experiences to work through any problems or mathematical hurdles, Nishihira explained.
Safety is the main issue throughout the projects, and standards are strictly enforced, he said.
The rockets that the students build are completely from scratch. Materials used are copying paper, packing tape, white glue, string, rubber bands, balsa wood, oak tag poster paper, paper soda straws, plastic grocery bags, crepe paper, paper clips and masking tape.
The construction takes about a month to complete, given that the students work on their rockets in the last 30 minutes of class.
The hardest part of the project is that the student-built rocket will be launched by their parents, he said.
But, it doesn’t mean that the parents just show up and press the button. The parents are briefed on the safety and launch process of the day, and the students may not touch the rocket on the morning of the launch after it has been packed with recovery wadding and the C-class motor. The parents are to walk the rocket to the launch pad, slide the rocket on the launchrod, stage the rocket with the 12-volt ignition leads, while the students watch carefully and offer instructions if needed.
Once the rockets are staged, the students go through the exact same launch-safety checklist that their big brothers and sisters at PMRF (U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) do on their launches.
Wind check, radio checks, trackers and timers checks, and range-safety check all must be cleared and green-light calls given before the launch control officer gives the “clear for launch” command.
With time counted backwards from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, the parents wait for the word “launch” before they can press that button to send their children’s rockets up high into the sky.
There is a lot of pressure on the rocket designers, because they have been holding their breath all this time, hoping for a successful ignition and liftoff, Nishihira said.
But it doesn’t end there.
The students still have to track their rockets and call “mark” to capture time and altitude of apogee, the highest point of the flight.
Following a successful recovery charge that pops the recovery streamer or parachute, the descent back to earth is still being timed until touchdown. The students then need to be calling in for tracking and timing data before clearing the range and signing off radio communication.
All flight data must next be analyzed, converted into metric measurements, computed, and plotted on graphs and charts, with calculations done to determine velocity, acceleration, altitude, and force in newtons.
The write-up is the least desirable task now, according to students, Nishihira said. The students will write up a summary, discuss trouble shooting and problem solving, include reflection, and finish an instruction paper which will be handed over to language arts teachers Jeffrey Smith and Jackie Matsumura to be graded on grammar, flow, and other rubrics.
The papers will be kept in the students’ portfolios, and may be accepted as their senior exit project. State Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau, came by to the class, and spoke to the students on the final instructional day about “never giving up” in whatever dreams and goals may be. He also presented awards to Syanne Sagawa and Rebecca Niheu-Yong as this year’s top rocketeers.
- Previous award winners were Braxton Parongao and Jordan Locquiao (2003), and Leslyn Ibara and Jamie Horikawa (2004).
