On Monday the 14th June I had to get up a 5.00am to goto Eltham to do a rocket workshop for a school.

It took just under 2 hours and 3 trains to get there but the weather was warm and had a nice slight breeze blowing, perfect for the rocket workshop.

I had been told very little about the school and so I was expecting a junior school of some sort, but instead I found myself at a secondary school / college which was also an all girl school !!

This at first worried me a bit as the club has had very little interest from girls and I only know a few women who fly model rockets so I thought I was in for a lot of stick from the girls.

I arrived at the school at 8.15 a.m. and was soon shown into the staff room before the teacher who booked me came in and introduced herself, we had a quick chat and then she got two girls to show me to the Science lab/classroom where I was going to hold the workshop.

In the room was a nice large box from Ripmax and as I had around an hour before the workshop was due to start, I opened the box and checked the contents. I found 40 small "USA" rocket kits, 14 packs of engines 2 packs of wadding and 4 big bottles of glue, just enough for the 2 workshops.

I repacked the box and returned to the staff room for the staff briefing and to talk to the members of staff.

Too soon the time came and so I returned to the classroom and waited, a few minutes later the first few girls appeared and nervously asked me "Sir, can we come in ?" , with a quick "Yes" the girls poured into the room and started to talk between themselves and joke about the box of rockets kits on the front table.

After a few minutes the room was filled with 18 girls and myself looking nervous as no member of staff had arrived. I then took a deep breath and told the girls to get into 4 groups which they did slowly and as they were getting into the groups the member of staff appeared and hurried them up.

For the next hour or so I was busy running from table to table helping the girls to build the rockets as only a few of them bothered to read the instructions and instead shouted for help.

Amazingly after 45 minutes or so the class had 18 rockets built and ready to fly, some were built better than others, but most seemed to be in a good enough condition to fly.

A few of the girls made big mistakes and so I had to give them a new rocket kit but within an hour every girl had a completed rocket of some sort.

Once the room was cleared of most of the mess that had been made, the whole class slowly made its way to the school field.

The field was rather small and was only about the size of a small football pitch, I was worried as I had trees on 2 sides, a main road on the other and the school building behind me. After a quick think about what was the best location I walked to the corner of the field and set up the launch pad with it aiming towards the far corner of the field.

The girls were gathered around to see what I was doing before I told them to move back from the launch pad and stay back.

I then asked who was first and about 4 rockets were given to me, I picked one and opened the box of engines and armed the rocket while giving it a quick check for problems,

I found none so once the rocket was armed I asked who's rocket it was and a girl came forward.

I showed her how to operate the launch system and with a little joking from the other girls a 5 second countdown was called and the girl pushed the two launch buttons,

All the girls screamed then laughed and talked among themselves and seemed to be amazed at the height the rocket had gone. The rocket reached a good height and then to my surprise deployed the parachute perfectly and slowly drifted down and landed in the middle of the field. For the next 30 minutes I armed and helped the 18 girls launch all their rockets.

I was then given a thankyou from most of the girls as they went of to lunch and I went to the staff room for a well earned rest.

The afternoon session went almost as well and at the end of the session the box of rockets was empty as I had to use 3 kits for spares, and two rockets were built wrongly or badly and could so they not be flown, but the rest of the rockets all launched and landed safely in the school field, mainly with some of the girls running across to try and catch the rocket on the way down.

In all the day was shattering but really enjoyable, I saw The head master just before I left and he said he enjoyed what he saw of the rocket workshop and he was thinking about making it an annual event so may call for H.A.R.T.'s services again next year. We will wait and see.