Tag Archives: Science Center Launch

The Upcoming St Louis Science Center Launch – July 20, 2013

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Final Update 11:00 PM Friday July 19, 2013

Those who said they'll be coming (email me at heyno@heino.com) if you know you're coming: 

Dan Welling
Heino and Janna Pull
Dennis Tuchalski
Ken Gianino
Mike Fischer
Dan Crank

I'm hoping that more will be able to make it - please consider even coming out for part of the day.

The Science Center has requested that we distribute the kits so that there will be flights all day long. It will probably rain at times, so be prepared. Be sure to have sunscreen and water since it will be
hot tomorrow.

An AV cart will be provided so we won't need any secondary LCD monitors.  Thanks to all who volunteered to bring one. It will be fairly dark in the area where we will be stationed. Outlets are sparse so Dan will have extension cords as backups if necessary. There is free wifi available at the planetarium.

We have fliers to distribute tomorrow. Hats, t shirts and polo shirts are available tomorrow.  Dan says that they look very good.

We have 10 20x30 inch poster board, 3 20x30 inch foam core poster board, poster markers for signs. I also got 18 #2 pencils for the rocket assembly.

Mike Fischer has certificates for those who fly.  We'll need someone with nice handwriting to fill those out. He also has 2 bulk packs of A 8-3 with a third coming tomorrow.

Here are the details (that I know) so far. Please comment on this post and I will update it with information known by others (such as equipment).

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Rocket kits are in. Attached are the Assembly instructions. (Warning! Mike Fischer has indicated there is an error in the instructions: The letter designators (B, C) for the MMT and thrust ring are reversed.)

We have a total of 60 kits. The directions are fairly simple, with only glue and a pencil required. From our meeting discussion, we will be using medium CA with accelerator and we (the club members) will actually be gluing the pieces to keep any problems with CA away from the kids. The kits will be raffled in some form periodically during the day.

Mike Fischer has purchased 2 Estes bulk pack and is waiting to get a third on Friday. We should be good to go on motors.

TV Segment: I have not been contacted by anyone concerning a TV segment, so I assume it is off. We would need more than a days notice to plan.

Setup:

Dan Welling is going to coordinate with John (Science Center) at the  Planetarium Friday afternoon.

Saturday: John (Planetarium Director) is planning to open the doors to the Planetarium for us at 8:30 a.m. The Planetarium will open by 9:30 a.m. and we need to be setup by then. They will provide 6 tables in the main entrance hall for us to setup on. We'll need to setup displays, any signage, and the launch area in the adjacent archery field. There may be some rain on Saturday, but we'll still plan on the event - even if we can't fly the rockets.

I plan to bring my DVD's with launch video (like the video at Bruce's party). I'll bring my 18" laptop as a screen in lieu of any larger screens that may be available. We didn't get a chance to discuss this at the last meeting, but I will be able to set something up inside.

In the past we have had fliers to hand out, and we didn't talk about this at the last meeting either. I'm attempting to locate the email from Dan from last year that had a form of the flyer attached and I will print those unless someone has thought of this already.

Event Day: I'm assuming that there will be inside and outside people based on the activity. Some of the roles needed for those that can help:

MC for the Raffle

Raffle Prep and operation

Flow control to the building tables

Builders at the tables to help build the kits

Flow control at the launch area

LCO/RSO at the launch

Any other roles/people that I'm forgetting?

Volunteers are appreciated for that Saturday. I believe the event is all day, but please correct me if this is not the case. We may have more information on the schedule Friday night. Almost everyone at the last meeting indicated that they can help.

Here are the things I don't know:

Availability of LCD screen for launch videos.

Who is actually coming?
Please comment on this post if I've forgotten anything.

Thanks to all that can attend and help with this event. This is a great opportunity for public outreach.

 

Heino

heyno@heino.com
(cell 314 650-7866)

 

 

Notes From Tuesday’s Meeting (7/9/2013)

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We had our meeting at the St. Louis County Library branch in Clayton and had quite good attendance of 16 members. . We also had John Lakey (Director of the Planetarium at the St Louis Science Center) attend the meeting.  We had a number of things to talk about.

1. Launch at the St Louis Science Center Planetarium - July 20, 2013. The launch is on and we will be meeting at the Planetarium at 8:30 a.m. The Planetarium will open at 9:30 am. We have access to the archery field all day and the Science Center is providing 6 tables in the Planetarium entrance area to be used for building rockets and rocket displays. The Science Center is covering the cost of all materials (including the rocket kits) and suggested we plan on raffling off the kits to kids who attend. We will help the winners build their kits and then fly them at the archery field. We have chosen the Quest StarHawk and have purchased 60 kits. We are going to use Estes A8-3 motors and will purchase enough bulk packs to cover the 60 rockets. We plan on supporting the event all day and do need help. We will still provide a display in the Planetarium if the weather is bad. I will have a separate post to cover the event.

2. We may still do a TV spot prior to the Science Center launch. We have several members who can help set up a small launch in the Planetarium parking lot depending on whether a local TV station requests a segment. We'll try to show parts of the kits and do a brief science lesson. The TV station or media person from the Science Center will contact us on short notice if this might happen.

2. A new member (Dave Kovar) who  just moved to the St. Louis area and pitched an idea for recognizing the anniversary of Apollo 11 next year in the April/May2014  time frame as an educational outreach program.   He has organized similar events in New Mexico for other Apollo flights and has had Apollo flight director Gene Kranz and Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke attend. He has already coordinated with the Science Center and asked us to participate in an educational launch. This sounds like an exciting event with the potential of Gene Kranz coming to the St. Louis area.  Dave plans to discuss the details in future meetings and on our web site. The membership was very interested in helping out. Welcome Dave!

3. Dan Welling has obtained detailed pricing info and embroidery samples for t-shirts, hats and polo shirts. He presented the options at the meeting and all agreed that the graphics will be very impressive (although a few changes will be required).. We had already approved a purchase of t-shirts and hats to be ordered for the Science Center. We also discuss polo shirts with embroidered logos and a list has been started that will be ordered immediately. Look for a separate post to detail how to get hats, t-shirts, and polos. Twelve hats have been ordered that will be fluorescent orange and have the logo, American flag, and website URL on it. These will be available to members for the Science Center launch. Here are the sample embroidered samples Dan has received.

A-263188_St ORANGE HATS A-263188_St Royal Polos wwwstlouisrocketry

4. The board of directors is discussing the status of the August scout launch since the weather may be very hot. We are considering rescheduling to September or October and more details will be available after the July 20th event. We are still planing to host 200 cub scouts at this event with rocket assembly to occur.

5. Ken Gianino has found that Bandanas on Gravois in south county, has a meeting room available with no minimum food purchase. We are considering having the August meeting there as a trial. Look for more information on the web site.

Thanks to all who attended the meeting - we look forward to seeing everyone at the Science Center on July 20th!

July 9 2013 General Meeting Announcement – Note Location Change From Growlers! Correction to Date

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Next Meeting: SLRA is having our regular monthly meeting on Tuesday
evening, July 9th, at a changed location: St. Louis County Library – Mid County Branch (located in Clayton)
7821 Maryland Avenue - St. Louis. We will be in the small auditorium (MC) and have the room from 6:30 to 9:00 PM. My first time at this library will be Tuesday night, so I can't give exact instructions to the room until I get there. I'll be sure to update this post on Tuesday once I find out where the room is located.

You may get driving directions to the library using the following link to Google maps. Note there is a garage off of Maryland that has limited capacity and there is also on street parking.  We will need to discuss the meeting location for the August meeting since we only have the library room for July.

Meeting Event Link
The room will be availabe at 6:30 PM and  the business meeting will start at about 7:00PM.

If you're a member of SLRA, the meeting minutes from the July meeting will be available here: Meeting Minutes Forum Post

Topics for discussion at the July 2013 Meeting (partial list - filled as items come up).

1. We need to finalize plans for the July 20th launch event at the St. Louis Science Center Planetarium. John Lakey, Director of the Planetarium, will be attending the meeting and it is crucial that we have good attendance at this meeting in particular. Here is a partial list of issues to be resolved:

a. Questions for John.
b. Purchase and choice of rockets kits. Expenditure required. Finalize the number of kits and motors.
c. Procurement of tools and supplies for the public to use to build the kits with club member help.
d. Location of work space to build kits.
e. Schedule of the event. (build time, launch time)
f. Equipment for the event
g. Paper flyers for the event
h. Set up time the night before?
i. Weather decisions for the event
j. Access to the planetarium.
k. Who can help?

2. I've been contacted by the media department of the Science Center to arrange a possible tape or lived television segment prior to the 20th. We have at least one volunteer to help in front of the camera (Dan Welling) and would be looking for more or backups if someone is interested in helping out. The Science Center has also asked for us to do a small "science lesson" and a launch of a small number of rockets "on air". I emailed an idea of the "science lesson" to the media coordinator and she has pitched the segment to local stations. There was a response from KMOV (who already has a Science Center show on Saturday morning) to the media coordinator, but we have not been formally contacted. I (and my wife) am willing to help with this effort since this could be great exposure for the club, but we'll need more to help if we are asked. Time and place is TBD, but to make this work it would almost have to be at the Science Center archery field just before the Saturday event. I definitely cannot do this segment on my own, and if enough members are not available or willing to help, I will decline the segment to the media coordinator. The board of directors are aware of the request, and I'm letting the rest of the membership know in this post.

3. Next meeting location. We currently do not have the library room for August and need to discuss our future meeting locations. Ken, Rodney, and Mike Fischer had ideas for various locations and Ken did set up our July location. It looks like most restaurants require a minimum food purchase to use a room and this is typically more than $150. Many who attended our Growlers location did not purchase food prior to our meetings, but luckily Growler's never complained.  Any future location will almost certainly require a minimum and we need to discuss what we can commit to (possibly backing a purchase requirement from the club treasury?).

4. Our June Buder Park launch and issues with use of the field that came up with a Park Ranger. This may have a bearing on the use of Buder Park for an August scout launch - particularly if we have a large number of fliers (200) and cars trying to park.

5. The August proposed scout launch.

6. Status of logo shirts/hats etc.

7. GSLMA meeting

8. Members expenses:

Ken Gianino $10 for the use of the library auditorium for the July meeting.

On line and paper membership forms with payments received by mail  to be processed by treasurer and president.

Please comment on this post or email me at heyno@heino.com if you have anything to add, or questions or comments.

Heino Pull
SLRA Secretary