15 hours ago
6
Students at this year’s Summer Bond Camp are getting the chance to learn about the exciting world of rocket science. The five-day camp, which opened on Monday, is giving children more than just fun summer activities by exposing them to new learning experiences. One of the highlights this week is a special session led by Belizean rocket scientist Dr. Policarpio Soberanis, founder of ANANSI Lab LLC. During the session, students are learning the basics of how rockets work, while taking part in hands-on activities that encourage them to think, solve problems, and work together. Love News spoke with Dr. Soberanis about how the rocket science session has been going so far.
Dr. Policarpio Soberanis, Founder, ANANSI Lab LLC.: “So the goal of the project is to help them to go through the process of working together as a team, look at design traits for the rocket and allow them to come to a consensus. So it’s more than just the math and science portion of it, it’s also the ability for them to work together, come to a consensus, and implement that design successfully and then go through a process of testing the design, verifying that it does what they want it to do and then eventually validate that it’s going to actually do what they said it would do. So there’s this process of engineering that’s called verification validation. I want to take them through that process so they understand and have fun at the same time. Today’s session actually went really well. This was the first time we actually talked about designing the rockets, putting the soda bottles together. Because, so first off, the rockets are not pyrotechnic. There’s no fire involved, very simple version of a rocket. We’ll put some water in the bottle, add pressure and then that’s what we used to launch the rocket. So it’s a very simple design but it gets all the principles that they need to learn across. So today was the first day touching the bottles and we talked through some of the different trades that they can do in terms of how they can design the cone, how they can design the fins, how they can add a weight to make it tip back over, how much water they wanna put in there. There’s a few different things that they can choose. So I’m trying to get them to think about how they can trade those different pieces together to get the optimal design for themselves and for their team. Now, in that process, some of the kids, they tend to bounce around in terms of the ideas that they’re throwing out and I want them to try out those ideas and not just say, “I’m gonna choose this one because I know it’s right.” I want it to justify why they believe that. So there’s a process of proving your design choices as well.”
Organizers say the rocket science sessions are giving students a chance to explore science and technology in a hands-on way, while showing them that careers in these fields are possible for young people in Belize.
English (US) ·