On Sat, 11 Jan 2003 00:37:12 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>I'm certainly glad that no one encouraged me to try this
>in high school.
I think you're the exception.
I didn't get to play with fun chemicals in high school - the most
exciting thing we did was precipitate barium nitrate (ooh, pretty
yellow, what that's it?) - but I had a great science teacher in middle
school. He did all kinds of pyro experiments, complete with data
collection and reduction, and the TAs got to help with the setup -
mostly safety related, making sure everyone had their goggles and
earplugs in, fire bottles at the ready - XCOR's teacart engine demos
gave me serious deja vu - and the paperwork. It taught me two
valuable lessons: 1) pyro is fun; 2) only if you respect its power and
treat it right. Working with plastic explosives in the Marine Corps
didn't change the lessons one bit. (Just increased the scale. "Cool!
Can we do that again? Whaddya mean, if I write the report? It wasn't
*that* cool.")
The only minor rocketeer I've heard of being injured is a young woman
in Norway, Sweden, some place like that. Got no encouragement from
teachers or parents, so did the work by herself. You always learn the
hard way that way, and she's now blind in one eye and missing some
fingers. Almost certainly would not have happened had she had
competent adult supervision.
I think Matt's taking the right approach. Get an idea, ask questions,
get help from the experts.
-R
--
"You haven't been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
-- Paul Crickmore
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