Rocketry Planet

GREENVILLE, South Carolina USA — Sadie Corle figured that the fastest car in a race of CO2-powered balsa wood dragsters might be the lightest one.

Stephen Greene, 16, launches a CO2-powered drag racer in a hall at Greenville Tech on the final day of Greenville Technical Charter High School's arts intersession. Photo: Owen Riley.

And a bright blue body with keen yellow stripes wouldn't hurt, either.

Her speedster was one of the winners in a competition between members of her class at Greenville Tech Charter High's arts intersession, a special week-long program focusing on the relationship between arts and science and other subjects.

“I tried to make the smallest car possible, and I wanted to make it shaped like a bullet so it would fly,” she said.

Fly it did. At least that's the way it appeared zooming down the hallway with others that were blasted off by a student using a hammer to smack a board that would whack a nail that would pack a punch into the pin on a CO2 cartridge.

Pop!

The dragsters weren't the only things flying Friday.

Another group of students who spent the week designing and building rockets launched them from a parking lot nearby.

With the school's focus on rigorous academic courses, it doesn't offer art classes during the regular semester, Assistant Principal Sharon Hall said.

“This is our chance to give our kids experience in a wide variety of experiences in the arts,” said Assistant Principal Sharon Hall, as students nearby plunked on acoustic guitars and dabbled in watercolors.

“It gives them a chance to see what untapped arts gifts they may have.”

More than 30 courses kept students occupied for the week, both on campus and off, including theater, Middle Eastern dance, architecture, filmmaking, culinary arts, sailing, oil painting and mosaic tile design.

Its sister schools, Brashier Middle College Charter High and Greer Middle College Charter High, had arts intersession programs as well. Brashier offered courses including fencing, modeling, healing touch, makeup and skin care, yoga and Hawaiian culture.

Copyright © 2011, The Greenville News.