Event officially launches Morgan County Fair Wednesday

FORT MORGAN, Colorado USA — Nicole Kauffman, 11, of Fort Morgan has had model rocketry as part of her life since near the beginning.

She was one of five 4-H kids shooting her rocket into the sky — a single-stage Payloader with a B-64 engine — in the parking lot north of the Morgan County Fairgrounds Events Center Wednesday as the Morgan County Fair got underway in earnest, but it was scarcely the first time for her, she said.

In fact, she started on the hobby when she was just 4 years old. That happened because it is a family hobby, Kauffman said.

Sharing the experience can be part of the fun in rocketry, and the kids displayed that spirit of cooperation by helping out when Greyson Kehm, 12, of Fort Morgan needed some advice for what was his very first try, congregating around him to give hints and basic information.

That includes things like how to put in padding and pack the parachute, putting in the engine, its igniter and the ignition plug, Kauffman said.
 
This was the third time for Kauffman to participate in the 4-H rocketry program. Like other 4-H projects, kids finish one unit and move on the next the following year, she said.

At the first skill level, children must complete a record of their activities and build a rocket from a kit. These are not snap-together rockets and do require some work.

One of the challenges for Kehm was getting the balsa tail fins to stay in place, he said.

When his launch came, it went off well and the fins stayed in place, but the nose cone came off, as he feared, but one of his fellow rocketeers found it.

“Sometimes they don’t stay together,” said rocketry judge Steve Ostgaard.

That does not disqualify the child, since it is only one of the factors in judging, he said.

A judge gauges the construction of the rocket before launch, listens to make sure the kids comply with a safety check-off, checks for flight stability after launch, watches for the parachute to deploy and checks the landing, Ostgaard said.

By the time a 4-Her reaches the sixth level, he or she must build his or her own rocket from scratch and has to document and create a display of the work, Kauffman said.

For Kauffman, part of the fun is seeing how close she can get the rocket to land to the launch pad, although “shooting it off” is the most fun, she said.

According to the National Association of Rocketry, model rocketry was developed during the “space race” era as an alternative to the amateur rocket activity — involving metallic airframes and the mixing of dangerous propellants — which was responsible for injuring and even killing numerous young scientific experimenters.

Today, “model rockets are constructed of much safer materials — such as cardboard, plastic and balsa wood — and are fueled by single-use rocket motors manufactured by professional concerns. These rockets may be flown over and over simply by replacing the used motor with a fresh one. They typically contain a parachute, streamer or other recovery device that allows them to land gently for later reflight. The modeler need never mix, pack or work with explosives or propellants,” NAR says.

Adam Goss, 16, Brush; William Schneider, 10, Wiggins, and Wyat VonFeldt, 9, Fort Morgan, also launched rockets.

Aficionados tout the educational value of rocketry and rocketry’s value in supporting the space program, but when it all comes down to it, it is the excitement of that launch that catches the kids.

“I always liked rockets and thought it would be fun to make one and shoot it off,” Kehm said.

Copyright © 2007, Fort Morgan Times.