Waimea High students in Jerry Nishihara’s math class weren’t too upset about having to wake up early on Tuesday, over their Christmas vacation. Using a bunch of super-technical equipment, the students shot off their hand-made mini-rockets, on a perfect, mostly
Waimea High students in Jerry Nishihara’s math class weren’t too upset about having to wake up early on Tuesday, over their Christmas vacation.
Using a bunch of super-technical equipment, the students shot off their hand-made mini-rockets, on a perfect, mostly windless morning at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kekaha.
Joined by family members, PMRF ambulances, fire trucks, and missile specialists on the airstrip at base, the freshmen and sophomores each shot off their rockets and, with a partner, another mass-produced rocket on the runway. Then they stood back and watched as a few PMRF personnel sent off some rockets of their own.
All their rockets were tracked by a high-powered optics stand about a hundred yards from the runway, the Variable Tracking Mount, which tracked each foot-long rocket’s speed, altitude, and time of flight, said Commander William Murphy, Executive Officer of PMRF.
The VTM had most recently been used by to track the dummy missile shot from PMRF in the Aegis exercises on December 11.
“They’ve done really well,” said Murphy as another home-made rocket flew into the air. “It worked out real well.”
Nearly every hand-made rocket, put together from scratch during Nishihara’s math class, made it into orbit, with most reaching almost seventy feet in the air.
The rockets took three months to build, said Nishihara. And it doesn’t end there, as the rockets are part of an ongoing class project, using math, science, and technology skills.
The students would also be using the data on the missile shots to create a presentation to be e-mailed to Nishihara and others, he said.
At least 50 people were on hand, including parents and teachers.
Staff writer Tom Finnegan can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 226)
