AcroRay
03-02-2011, 09:54 AM
Mr. Bob at Starlight was kind enough to allow me to order a couple of their National Rocketry Day "Zippy" kits, in prep for a rocketry project I'm developing for my daughter's Girl Scouts troop. There could be upwards to 30 Brownies and Girl Scouts building and flying, so the Zippy seems like the perfect kit for both price and building experience.
I took some shots of the kits. My plan is to have my 8 year old daughter build one as a demo, so I can see how well the other girls will do with it, and adjust our teaching methods accordingly. The goal is to have the girls build them one week, and I'll take the Zippies home and spray paint them all white. (Unless the girls want to take them home and decorate their birds themselves.) Then I'll bring them back and the girls can decorate them the next week. The flight day is tentatively planned to be in the field next to the host school when the weather gets better (hopefully on National Rocketry Day!), using A8-3s.
Zippy is an 18mm 3FNC slightly over 8 inches high, with a PNC, pre-cut balsa fins and streamer recovery. It looks like a great little rocket! One of the features that really surprised me was that the BT is pre-marked for the fin locations and launch lug. Grappling with how to efficiently have all the girls properly mark their BTs was a challenge I hadn't sorted out. Starlight kindly did that for me, and still kept the kit at $1.75! The sample I opened has a high quality 2-part PNC, cleanly cast. The shoulder fits into the cone very tightly, so only a tiny bit of glue should be needed to assemble it. Zippy is a minimum-diameter bird, and Starlight provides a yellow guide tube to set the engine block. The instructions are exceptionally well drafted, printed with clear, large drawings. A NAR membership flier is tossed in for good measure.
I really don't think anyone could do better for a teaching rocket than Zippy. This covers the basic assembly skills and materials challenge, and doesn't cheapen out with a plastic 1-piece fin can & a body wrap decal, which I really appreciate. And the price is amazing. Starlight really deserves some credit and gratitude for this venture.
I'll post more pics and info as the project progresses.
I took some shots of the kits. My plan is to have my 8 year old daughter build one as a demo, so I can see how well the other girls will do with it, and adjust our teaching methods accordingly. The goal is to have the girls build them one week, and I'll take the Zippies home and spray paint them all white. (Unless the girls want to take them home and decorate their birds themselves.) Then I'll bring them back and the girls can decorate them the next week. The flight day is tentatively planned to be in the field next to the host school when the weather gets better (hopefully on National Rocketry Day!), using A8-3s.
Zippy is an 18mm 3FNC slightly over 8 inches high, with a PNC, pre-cut balsa fins and streamer recovery. It looks like a great little rocket! One of the features that really surprised me was that the BT is pre-marked for the fin locations and launch lug. Grappling with how to efficiently have all the girls properly mark their BTs was a challenge I hadn't sorted out. Starlight kindly did that for me, and still kept the kit at $1.75! The sample I opened has a high quality 2-part PNC, cleanly cast. The shoulder fits into the cone very tightly, so only a tiny bit of glue should be needed to assemble it. Zippy is a minimum-diameter bird, and Starlight provides a yellow guide tube to set the engine block. The instructions are exceptionally well drafted, printed with clear, large drawings. A NAR membership flier is tossed in for good measure.
I really don't think anyone could do better for a teaching rocket than Zippy. This covers the basic assembly skills and materials challenge, and doesn't cheapen out with a plastic 1-piece fin can & a body wrap decal, which I really appreciate. And the price is amazing. Starlight really deserves some credit and gratitude for this venture.
I'll post more pics and info as the project progresses.