Aerospace Engineering Camp :)

Wow... It feels like it's actually FRIDAY for the first time in 2 months. O_O

As you may know, I have been attending an Aerospace Engineering camp at a nearby college. This camp, in my opinion, was so awesome and intriguing that I don't know where to begin! :P

For the past 4 nights, I have been creating paper airplanes for 3 different competitions that we competed in today (I wasted about 15 sheets of paper in the process). Here is a list of the competitions. :)

• Range- How far the paper airplane travels
• Endurance- How many seconds the paper airplane stays in the air
• Accuracy- How far back you can stand from a hanging hula hoop and fly the plane through the hoop successfully (10 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet...etc.)

We actually competed in these competitions on the first day of camp using balsa wood airplane kits the camp instructor provided for us. We also learned quite a bit of knowledge about planes and flight on this first day, including a certain Bernoulli's Principle the instructor referred back to quite a bit throughout the camp. :P

On the second day, we walked down 5 flights of stairs and across campus to the baseball field at the college. There, we practiced throwing boomerangs and competed in a boomerang competition to see who could throw his/her boomerang and have it come back the closest to their location (I might have actually won this competition when the boomerang landed 15 feet and 7 inches to my left). After we returned to the main meeting room and ate lunch, we started using rocket kits to build rockets for the Rocket Launch on Wednesday.

As I described in the previous paragraph, we had our Rocket Launch competition on Wednesday. For this competition, we competed to see whose rocket would land the closest to a hula hoop (we use those a lot, huh? :P) the instructor placed in front of the rockets. My rocket actually shot up pretty high, and it landed in the infield of the baseball field where the boomerang and rocket launch competitions took place (about 90 feet away from the hoop).

Not too long before we went outside for this competition, an astronomer came in and taught us about the space aspect of aerospace engineering. :)

After we came back from the competition, the instructor showed us an RC simulator, where we attempted to fly a computerized RC airplane and military jet. Despite this, we all crashed in some exceptionally hilarious ways. :P

I felt bad for the guy who went after me though. Because there were two rocket launchers, and nobody had stepped up to the rocket launcher I had just launched from yet, I decided to stick around the launching area until after the guy after me launched. When he tried to launch, however, the rocket stayed on the launcher, and smoke spewed EVERYWHERE. I rushed back to the crowd of spectators to try to get away from the immense smoke (don't worry; it was harmless).

Yesterday was probably the most exciting day of the entire camp. We went into the CAD (Computer Animated Design) lab to design a rocket and an airplane on a software called Solidworks. Nobody finished the airplane, but one person came really close. I personally didn't get past the fuselage (body) of my plane. :P

Even though working in the CAD lab was cool, that was not why yesterday was so exciting. We separated into teams of 2 on Monday, and yesterday each team walked down to a different building so that each person could fly the two flight simulations the camp had to offer. These simulations felt JUST LIKE flying a real airplane! O_O Luckily I took off, turned, and landed successfully on both simulations, but this experience was exhilarating and INTENSE. :P

Today we reviewed the content we learned this week and viewed a little bit of new knowledge to wrap up the camp. This was also the day we had the paper airplane competitions and presented the airplanes we created. My range airplane actually did better at the competition than at home because I had more space to work with, but my endurance airplane didn't do as well at the competition. I had to practice my airplane over the wet grass in my front yard because it kept colliding into the walls and couch of my house, and over time the plane absorbed the moisture and created quite a bit of drag (the force working against the plane when it flies). My accuracy plane performed about as well at the competition as it did at home. Here are the statistics for each of these catagories. :)

Top Range (the farthest distance)

Home                                                           Competition
24 feet                                                           30.1 feet

Top Endurance

Home                                                           Competition
4 seconds                                                      1.7 seconds

Top Accuracy

Home                                                           Competition
15 feet                                                           15 feet

The instructor set up the RC simulator again while the parents were arriving for the awards ceremony, and everyone improved tremendously from Wednesday! I guess the practice we got from the flight simulations helped more with the RC simulations than I thought they would. :D

After the awards ceremony, I said goodbye to my partner and new friend for the last time (I miss her already) and left the familiar college with my parents.

Phew! That was a lot of reflecting and typing! I need to take a break so I can eat dinner... :P

That's all for now, and have a fantastic Friday everyone! :D