Making Stomp Rockets for Scout Family Camp (part2)

This Bank Holiday weekend lived up to its reputation with heavy rain on Sunday and showers on Monday.

Scout Family camp-site (wet & windy)

A Zorbing ball

This worked in my favour, as on Saturday I had only a few people doing the science activity as (quite rightly) they were taking advantage of the atypical sunshine and doing things like Zorbing (Big inflatable ball that rolls around with you inside) Human table football etc.
On the Sunday I had more takers. I had over 15 children try the science activities (out of about 50 registered for the camp consisting of Explorers, Scouts, cubs, beavers and younger siblings).
This event was different from other engagement activities I've done with fewer people but more time was spent with them.
At least 4 cubs did six activities (required for their Science badge) with most doing two to three and being on the way to their badge. I also had a wider range of ages and had to modify some activities for some who were under five years old. Their parents were also quite interested and helped focus their children's attention on the activities (6 activities is a big ask for 8- to 11-year olds).

I was able to demonstrate some math when making rockets i.e. using folding to find the centre of a circle and transforming it from a 2D shape to a 3D nose-cone

Home brew heater

There were some attempts at yoghurt making - however, I'm still having trouble with keeping them at 40 degrees C at the venues
(this time a school arts & crafts room - The cool-bag & hot-water bottle just aren't cutting it). Maybe something like those heating bands used on demi-johns by home-brewers might be the way to go?

Lights, camera, action!

I simplified the switch circuit by using the flashing LEDs that people mount on cars (12V) in a circuit that then only needed a 9V PP3 battery connect to & paper-clips to attach croc-clips test leads to with it all interconnected by screw-down "chocolate-block" electrical connectors (no soldering). The fact that graphite (in a pencil) conducted surprised many as they often decided that only metals conducted.


The children also liked making the CD hovercraft which I used to demonstrate Newtons first law of Motion (i.e. effects of inertia and friction).

Launch-time at Lunchtime (Climbing wall in background)

A completed stomp rocket

Blastoff!

3-2-1-stomp!

Stomp rockets were unsurprisingly popular and we went out and launched them on the Sunday lunchtime whilst the rain-clouds were refilling. Some went really well and some were rather erratic (probably down to their fins). A common point of failure was the nose-cones blowing off(!) so some serious pressure must have come out of the 2L bottles when stomped... I'll make a point in the instructions about using lots of tape to secure the nose-cone.

On the launcher front all three designs worked well but only the mating connectors where I had taken the time to bore out a hole in the bottle top worked reliably. The cut-off fruit-shoot cap just wasn't up to the pressures it experienced.