Science class blasts off

Half a dozen rockets made crash landings around the West Newport

Community Center last Tuesday, with some sticking in trees, bushes,

even a construction site next door.

The rockets may have been small -- about one inch in diameter --

but they demonstrated a valuable fact of science: It doesn’t take

fuel, gunpowder or even a spark to defy gravity. The instructors of

the “X-Treme Rockets and the X-Prize Adventure Camp,” a science

program for 6- to 11-year-olds, used bicycle pumps to power the tiny

vessels off their launchers.

“I learned that air is a really powerful thing,” said Adam Wyatt,

7, of Costa Mesa. “It can launch a rocket high up in the air.”

As children and instructors congregated on the blacktop Tuesday,

one rocket after another soared into the air with a bracing o7pop

f7sound. Dozens of voices counted as camp director Cristina Gonzalez

pressed the air pump again and again, waiting to see how many blasts

of pressure it would take to send the missiles flying.

The power of air pressure was one of many discoveries in the

Destination Science staff’s summer program this year. During the

previous week’s camp, participants built robots out of circuitry and

gears. This week, the staff planned to offer a course on

weight-lifting beetles and other mysteries of science.

“There isn’t really a bad thing about this place, because there’s

always something to do,” said Blake Smith, 10, of Newport Beach, who

participated in the robot camp the week before.

Before launching the rockets, the 42 students in the X-Treme camp

took part in other activities relating to outer space and technology.

Students decorated their individual rockets, which the instructors

built out of pipes and foam pads. The children added fins, stickers

and other bits of flair.

Last Tuesday morning, Gonzalez led a group in building “warblers”

-- battery-powered contraptions that rolled across the table when

turned with a crank.

When the class made robots last week, some students outfitted them

with weapons to turn them into battle droids. However, Gonzalez said,

she was sure to enlighten the class about the scientific aspects of

robots in the real world.

“We created them showing how one gear could move another gear,”

Gonzalez said. “They learn about balance -- the fact that if anything

is built at a certain level, there has to be a pivotal point.”

* SCHOOL’S OUT is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Michael Miller visits a summer camp within the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about the experience.