On October 4th, 2019 Apollo 20 (that’s us!) launched their first rocket in the afternoon. It worked. Really well. After that launch, I thought about the things that happened to make this launch so successful.

The first part of our rocket design was the research. You have to know about rockets to build them (fun fact). The research I did helped a lot with design choices that  we made about our rocket. For example, the reason we decided our fins would be straighter up and our nose cone would be straighter up was to reduce the wind resistance on it, and I would not have thought of it if it were not for that research.

The next step was to practice using the tools. That part was pretty fun. We went into our wing and all took turns using the clinometers (these would take the angle of the rocket in the sky from 50 meters away) to practice with them. That was very fun and it was very much like playing laser tag. The learning of how to use the trundle wheel was not as useful because it’s a pretty basic tool and I feel that we went over it once too many times (we went over it twice) but I suppose some people forget which is fine.

I was assigned the countdown for the actual launch, which was fun because you get to scream to the clinometer groups “CLINOMETERS, READY?” I wanted to say “Are you ready to roll?” but I feel Mrs. Robert would not want that. Everyone in my group was good at their assigned jobs. Our rocket launched pretty high which I was proud of, but as I was clapping and watching the rocket came down fast and landed 3 feet in front of me. Basically, I almost got killed by tape and paper.

Later on when we were clinometer people I kept my clinometer on the rocket and stopped at the highest point. That was my strategy for capturing moving objects, and it was pretty good. I caught the rocket at 33 degrees.

I think that if we decided to make an even thinner tube, it would go even higher next launch. I also am happy with our decisions at the same time since our rocket went so high.

During the launch I felt so nervous I would screw something up, like say the wrong number. But I did everything about right. When the rocket launched it was surprisingly quiet but then again it was only air pressure. I was so excited when it launched but when the rocket landed about 3 feet in front of me I was shocked.

That was probably one of the best 1st launches ever, so that was an experience that was amazing. What a time to be alive!