| Mission Accomplished: Oak Mountain High School TARC TEAM! |
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| From left to right: Seth Denney - Rachel George - Brian Pappas - Charles Hyde (Leah Griner not pictured) |
| View 2007 BRB TARC Team Images |
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For
a couple of weeks leading up to their qualification attempt, George,
Blake, Kim and I mentored the Oak Mountain High School TARC team by
long distance, using the club message board and emails. After a few
exchanges between the team leader Brian Pappas and myself, I found that
we were working with not only good students but also young men and
women who are going to be good adults and good citizens.
This
group of young people did things by the book and independently. They
were most impressive as they came up with a design, chose an engine,
found a field to practice on, worked out their flight problems,
learning from each one and making adjustments as they went along. They
overcame all the obstacles and with very little mentoring. In the
process, they became a real team.
When
they were ready for their qualification attempt George, Blake and I
went down to a pasture in Chelsea to observe the flights and do the
paper work they would need for NAR. When we arrived we found a group of
high school students acting as adults. They were prompt, organized and
courteous, not to mention clean cut, cheerful and excited, basically
what we used to refer to as, "All American Kids."
A
few days ago I asked Brian to help me with some information on the team
so I could do a short write up for the BRB website but after reading
his reply, I've decided to let him tell their story in his own words.
If you read carefully you will be able to follow their logic and see a
team develop.
Pay
attention to the over all tone of Brian's email. If this doesn't touch
you, and make you feel good after reading it, you're dead.
Okay here it goes" Names: Brian Pappas, Charles Hyde,
Seth Denny, Rachel George, Leah Griner
Teacher: Serri Humphery
Score: altitude=922 ft (72 ft from the
target of 850), time=48.17 seconds (3.17 seconds from target of 45
seconds) total score=75.17
As far as individual contributions, the
majority of the decisions were made as a group. However some
of us kind of evolved into taking on certain aspects of the
launch. Rachel designed the launch pad and was the one
responsible for loading the payload because her hand was the only one
small enough to fit inside the tube. Seth's main
responsibility was to ensure the field was available when we needed to
launch (which meant calling his uncle to herd up the cows), and he was
our "official count down man". Besides being "trigger man",
Charles became the expert in locating the rocket whenever it went out
of view (i.e. landing in trees). Leah helped a lot with the
building of the rocket with the quality of work in helping to make our
nose cone and fins perfectly smooth. I handled the
organization aspects and the minute repairs that need to be done after
the launches.
I know none of this is a major
responsibility that we each had to uphold, because we designed, built,
and flew the rocket together as a team.
Just for more information: height:
30 inch diameter: 2.6 in. fully loaded mass: 480
g. Engine: F48-8t, the last flight of the rocket
was the 11th flight of that particular rocket design and the 14th
flight we had made as a team.
Thanks,
Brian Pappas Regardless of their final standings in the competition, these young people are winners. They did something much more important than making a qualifying flight for TARC, they learned to work together as a team, sharing the responsibilities, the workload, and the credit. And they did it with class. It's
the young men and women like Brian, Seth, Charles, Rachel and Leah who
show us there is hope for the future. We were honored to be witnesses
of their success.
These
young men and women, and others like them, are why BRB does outreach.
Randy
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