On Wednesday, March 4th, Mr. Heffington’s Flight and Space class launched rockets on the blacktop behind Liberty Middle School. This was part of a project to learn about trajectory and orbits. First, students made a PowerPoint presentation about wind trajectory. Then, they worked to build their rockets. Mr. Heffington built a launch pad from which they launched their rockets. On launch day, not everything went according to plan. According to Matthew Cunningham, an 8th grader in the Flight and Space class, there were two rockets whose parachutes did not deploy. This was because one was burned by the motor, and the other one had the parachute packed too tightly. Matthew and his classmate, Norah Albert, another 8th grader at Liberty, both enjoyed this project. Norah said, “The instructions were really clear.” These rockets can be set off again if students replace the motors. The class is planning to relaunch their rockets again in the near future.
