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3, 2, 1, blastoff!

Tribune photos by SCOTT ISKOWITZ

Eric Chen, left, and Austin Repp load a rocket with water before liftoff Friday at Chiles Elementary School.

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 16, 2009

NEW TAMPA - Students at Chiles Elementary School had a chance to be space engineers Friday.

As a team of astronauts prepared to continue a series of spacewalks to repair the Hubble telescope, back on Earth students in Sharon Cutler's fifth-grade science class were learning the principles of how to design and build rockets.

With help from four engineers from Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Oldsmar, the students poured over tables lined with empty plastic soda bottles, cardboard fins, colored paper, crayons, tape and Play-doh to gather materials to construct bottle launchers.

The students' challenge was to build a rocket propelled by water or a chemical mixture of baking soda and vinegar. The two-member team designing the rocket that launched the farthest would win school supplies.

"Three, two, one, blastoff!" yelled student spectators watching as the homemade rockets took flight.

The winner was The Glider 4000, a chemical powered contraption created by Blake Buchanan, 10, and Evan Crawford, 11. The boys' rocket, wrapped in blue paper emblazoned with USA, soared skyward for 4.32 seconds.

Kenneth Knight

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