Day 3 "Return to Earth" day

Our final day of space camp and a whole lot of activities to cram in, so busy straight away, beginning with a shuttle launch video and a look at a Mars rover video, showing the journey of the delta rocket that delivered the mars rover to the surface of Mars. It is still sending back images today, just roaming the surface, drilling rocks and photographing the structure and strata of the rock. Being solar powered it can carry on indefinitely. We then had our first group discussion session, where each group had to decide on a survival plan for being on Mars. They were allocated 16 items, ranging from a rubber dingy to a pistol and had to place these items in order of importance. Much thoughtful discussion ensued with all agreeing oxygen was vital whereas the mobile phone would be useless. Good ideas from all, showing a good grasp of the martian atmosphere. This was then followed by a 45 minute powerpoint session on a chosen topic. I shall be emailing these to parents shortly and then the campers can continue and complete their research if they so wish. Good ICT skills here. Well done particularly to Owen and Sofi who were not familiar with powerpoint. I hope you learned some new computer skills. Before lunch we began to design and construct a balloon powered fly by wire rocket. As shown in the photos below it had to travel up a length of string. After several abortive attempts all succeeded in reaching the top of the string. The difficult part was attaching an inflated balloon to a structure that would then permit it to deflate rapidly, thereby producing enough thrust to move upwards. This activity was completed after lunch before we began the final team challenge. Each group was given a paper cup, a sheet of A4 paper, an egg, a balloon, and a toolkit of scissors and rulers. The challenge was to construct a parachute that would protect the egg when dropped from the school roof (7 metres) To help they were also given $2 million with which they could buy, at NASA prices, extra components. These were, namely a large white bag ($500,000) another balloon, another cup, more paper, 1 metre of string costing $200,000 and 10cm of sellotape at $100,000. Finally a sheet of newspaper weighed in at a very generous $300,000!
The overall objective was to return with the egg intact and the winner being the one with the cheapest design that succeeded. Well done to Apollo 11 and Apollo 14 groups whose eggs remained intact. Apollo 12's whilst not smashed, was broken. Good design needing a little more cushioning. However, the overall winners were Apollo 11 who came in under 1 million dollars whereas Apollo 14 spent $1.1 million. A really challenging activity. Finally, balloon rockets were demonstrated to parents, certificates handed out and evaluation forms filled in. Thank you to all for the most positive comments made on these. Overall the re were no particular activities that were disliked (apart from tidying up, Rachel) and everyone had good ideas about which was their favourite. Also, mature and thoughtful comments were made regarding what the group had learned during the 3 days, including such things as, science is fun, teachers can be nice during the holidays!! and that some could work in groups with people they did not previously know. I shall use some of these comments on my next letter for the summer space camp I am planning. I really enjoyed the three days, that went in a flash and hope that it gave all the participants plenty of learning opportunities as well as bundles of fun. A really pleasant and interesting 14 young adults. Great time.