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Festival of Rocketry

rocketandroll

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rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Hi all

It isn't strictly astronomy related, but is space related and there WILL be astronomy at the event... so...

As one of the main organisers of this event, thought I should do my bit to start promoting it far and wide...

Festival of Rocketry |

This will be the first European 'Festival of Rocketry' and will be a three day event in the west midlands over the 15th to 17th of July featuring non stop (as long as the weather is good!) launching of model, high power and amateur rockets.

There is camping and facilities on-site and there is also a splinter group of rocket geeks who are also into astronomy holding a mini star-party Friday and Saturday nights if skies are clear with at least five or six people with scopes expected to bring their gear.

It should be a great day-out for anyone who wants to come and watch, and there are even rocketry workshops for anyone who wants to get involved!

Ben

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rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Why exactly, isn't this event closer to me????!?!?!?! My family would love this.

Al

Sorry :-)

As with many such things that require attendance from all over the country, and open space... it's had to be in an area where there's a lot of farm land and that is fairly central geographically.

There unfortunately aren't many good rocket launching locations way down south :-(

Ben

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rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Curses, I could have looked into combining this with my existing passion for cycling;

Richter Rocket Bicycle

(Being subtitled, Three flatulent cycilsts hurtle towards the final frontier...)

Olly

We can make that happen Olly....

We helped do this for the TV science show 'Bang goes the theory' a couple of years back...

post-23494-133877609125_thumb.jpg

Is your life insurance up to date?

:-)

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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We can make that happen Olly....

We helped do this for the TV science show 'Bang goes the theory' a couple of years back...

[ATTACH]59530[/ATTACH]

Is your life insurance up to date?

:-)

Gordon Bennet, I thought my digestive system was bad! Imagine trying to take that guy's wheel as you headed up the Champs Elysee at the end of the Tour de France...

I will gladly receive for review any product that will help counteract the effects of age and indolence on my cycling performance, or what is left of it. Rockets? Gimmee!!!

Olly

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rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Is that the toffe-laughing gas SRB?*:D

Yep.

They borrowed one of our 4" hybrid engines to run the dolly down the train track. I must put my hands up and admit I had my finger over the kill button to shut the engine off and let it decelerate before it hit the water barrels.... I think I remembered to push it just about as it hit :-)

Those engines normaly run using polyethylene or acrylic as the fuel... but toffee and peanuts seems to work fine :-)

Ben

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rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Gordon Bennet, I thought my digestive system was bad! Imagine trying to take that guy's wheel as you headed up the Champs Elysee at the end of the Tour de France...

I will gladly receive for review any product that will help counteract the effects of age and indolence on my cycling performance, or what is left of it. Rockets? Gimmee!!!

Olly

I'll swap you.... TEC140 for rocket powered bycicle... go on, you know you want to :-)

Ben

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rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Is this event suitable for small kids to watch ? i.e. stuff to keep interest levels up between the launches, or maybe its just lots of whoosh and bangs all the time....

Kinda depends how young, and whether it's a subject that interests them in the first place...

Depending on the weather, these events can be pretty non-stop with a launch every couple of minutes of one kind or another... there should be some lovely big stuff going up which will certainly keep the excitement levels up :-)

There can however be gaps with no launching, sometimes 20 mins or more.

One good thing is that there will be regular rocket workshops going on where kids (and adults) can build their own model rockets and then have help launching them for just a few quid....

We're sorting out when/how frequent these workshops will be over the three days but it might be good to come and do one of those with kids?

It's also one of those things where there are a lot of passionate people about who will be happy to chat about what they're doing and their equipment... chatting to people is always a great way to make it a more interesting experience for any spectators (much like astronomy I guess).

One thing I would say, if they're very small, and aren't keen on loud noises... maybe consider bringing some ear protection for them. There is a bit of manly rivalry that goes on about who has the biggest, noisiest rocket... and I for one have been responsible for two instances involving small children, the first where a little girl was heard to ask her dad, just after one of my rockets went up "Daddy, when will I get my hearing back?" and another last year when another particularly violent one of my flights went up and a small child apparently 'lost control of their bodily functions' due to the noise. With the big stuff it is best described as being like a jet engine suddenly starting up on afterburner for a couple of seconds then instantly shutting off. I think the kid in question was unfortunately standing right on the flight line about 150ft from the launch pad, so it's perhaps best to keep the little ones a little further back, unless they're the kind of kids who like the noisiest fireworks :-)

Ben

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  • 1 month later...
rocketandroll

rocketandroll

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Just thought I'd shamelessly bump this with just two weeks to go now until the event!

Attendance is looking really good so there should be some great flights... just keeping fingers crossed for the weather now :-)

Hope to see a few SGL'ers there!

Ben

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