Rockets fly at NASA camp

PABLO — A little rolled up paper and some scotch tape provided area middle schoolers with about as much fun as they could handle Saturday at NASA camp in Pablo.

Sponsored by the University of Idaho’s “NASA Summer of Innovation” grant, the program partnered with Salish Kootenai College to increase student participation in science and math. According to Frank Finley, SKC faculty and spear-header of the NASA camp, the SKC camp is the largest group of Native American students participating in the grant nationwide. In addition, the program trained fifteen teachers this summer to use NASA curriculum in their classrooms.

“It’s important for kids to have a science background,” Finley said. “There’s not much difference in what we do as Native people and science in the greater world. There are so many things that are science that we use in everyday life that we never know about.”

Projectile motion was the hot topic at Saturday’s session as students experimented with launching paper rockets at various angles. The launcher was a simple design composed of PVC piping and a lever to release air pressure applied to the system with a bike pump. By pumping 125 psi of pressure with the pump, rockets could launch up to approximately 200 feet into the air.

Another lesson in projectile motion, students learned to throw with an atlatl, an Inuit spear-thrower that utilizes leverage to catapult long darts incredible distances with relative ease. Native cultures used atlatls to hunt small game all the way up to deer sized as throws often best distances of 200 to 300 feet at speeds greater than 60 miles per hour. Like the javelin throwing technique in track and field, students had to experiment with their release timing and angles to maximize the projectile’s distance.

Finally, students learned a thing or two about the physics of the sport of lacrosse before testing the lesson during a scrimmage outside. Why does cradling the ball in the basket of the lacrosse stick stop it from rolling out while you run? How do you create spin on a throw? By studying the forces at play, students had a better understanding of the various elements of the game.

By the end of the day, NASA camp participants had not only a better understanding of the science behind things like rockets, atlatls and the game of lacrosse, but they had learned a few other important life lessons as well.

“I didn’t think I’d be making any friends today,” James Farmer, of Ronan, said as he readied the rocket launcher with a group of three other boys from Big Arm and Polson.

“Three... two... one... blast off!” the boys shouted in unison.

If their dropped jaws were any indication, NASA camp was a “Mission Accomplished.”