Last June, Owen participated in a Star Base Camp at the military base near Fort Snelling. Each student had the opportunity to design their own rocket fins to go on their model rockets. The designs were then printed out on a 3D printer.
On the last day of class, it rained pretty heavily, so the class couldn’t launch their rockets. No worries, we launched Owen’s rocket at home at few months later…
Then, for Christmas, Jennifer gave Owen a pack of rocket fuel. Of course, December isn’t the best time to launch a rocket, so we waited until the weather was warmer.
On Sunday, June 14th, we attended a fundraising picnic at Wabun Picnic Area in Minneapolis sponsored by Camp Quest. Owen brought along his rocket set, eager to finally launch it for the first time this year. When we arrived at the picnic site, though, I told him there were too many trees around. He disagreed, and selected an open spot in the field. So, with about ten people looking on, we launched the rocket.
And it got stuck in a tree. A very, very tall tree. One of the guys standing nearby took his son’s football and threw it up at the rocket with all his might, but even he couldn’t get within 20 feet of the rocket.
I felt terrible for losing Owen’s rocket like that, especially since I was the one who had hit the trigger (Owen was having difficulty getting it to work). I apologized to him several times, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. He pointed out that he would be making another rocket later that same week, because he was enrolled in Star Base Camp again this summer.
And, yes, he was right: he and the other students did make rockets that week. But it wasn’t exactly the same. They didn’t get to custom design 3D-printed rocket fins this time. So…I still felt really bad.
That Monday, I stopped at the park after work. There was the rocket, still up in the tree. I searched online for ideas on how to get rockets out of trees, and the two main takeaway points were: 1) the ideas only work if the tree is in your yard and 2) just wait. Then I wrote to the Minneapolis Parks department and asked if they could let me know if a toy rocket found its way into their lost and found. They responded by saying they’d post it on their Facebook page, so that was nice of them, but I didn’t really hold out any hope of recovery.
The following Monday – about an hour before we had to be at the airport to fly to Massachusetts, Jennifer and I stopped at Wabun again. There had been a thunderstorm that morning, so I hoped it washed the rocket out of the tree. Well, no, it didn’t. It just washed the rocket about 5 feet lower than it had been. However, there were several larger sticks on the ground, and I whipped them up into the air (they’re actually easier to throw than footballs) and got close enough to rattle the correct branch but, still, no luck.
On Tuesday, June 30th, there was a beast of a thunderstorm in the early morning hours. I had to work from home that day but, during my lunch hour, I took Owen and Isla to Wabun yet again. Holding our hands up to block out the sun, all three of us stood under the trees trying to see if we could spot the rocket. Oddly, I couldn’t find it anywhere. “I guess it’s gone, buddy,” I told him. He suggested we look around on the ground, but not having seen it on our walk up to the picnic area, I wasn’t hopeful. Still, I marched due south to check out the area we hadn’t walked over yet.
Bingo.
The parachute was destroyed, and the rocket’s body was a bit soggy and bent. Nevertheless, after 16 days and 2 hours, Model Rocket Kepler 4-B finally came back to Earth. It is now decommissioned and sitting on Owen’s shelf in his room.