Last Wednesday my wife had some friends over for a craft party and I was in charge of the children. Mine are 18 months and 4 months and they are easy to keep entertained. But some of the attendees brought their children that varied in age from 6 to 9. I did not realize how quickly they would get bored. It was getting late and I was running out of options so I recommended that we go down to the park. Not too many thrills came out. When I said I wanted to go to the park to launch a rocket though, eyes lit up.
Being the age these children are, they fantasized that the rocket would go so high that it would hit the moon. Then there were questions of what would happen then "would it come back?" And I told them that if it made it to the moon it would not come back. The youngest asked if it would get stuck there and I told them yes. I told them that they would weigh 1/6th of their current weight and worked out the math of how much each of us would weigh. Using the same ratio we then dreamed of jumping six times higher on the moon. Children are generally excited about the effects and experiments of science. I think that children also have a greater knowledge of science innately than perhaps we did at their age do to growing interest in sciences, television programs and movies that relate to real world science, and access to such information on the Internet.
On our second trip (I forgot the launch bar on the first) we setup and prepared for launch. These three kids were all excited and anxious to see the launch. The cone has its own propeller blades that carry it down like a helicopter and the main part of the rocket has a parachute. I knew that my eyes might have a hard time because it had become dark and the mosquitoes were hungry so I wanted to pack up as soon as the rocket launched. I told them to keep track of both parts of the rocket. Needless to say that I will have to fabricate a new cone.
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