First day at camp

Hello again everyone,

We are now into the routine of Space Camp proper, and the kids are well
into their activities. We teachers have woken up feeling much better after
being sort of groggy yesterday. Crisp, cool morning here with blue skies,
but still that cold wind. Locals say that spring is very late this year ..
they had a light snow fall last Monday, and the leaves are usually all out
by this time in March. Set to warm up over the next few days though.

So the the teams are: ... team names come from the German rocket
scientists who were brought here after WW2. Holderer and Von T are still
alive, and von T is scheduled to give the kids a talk later in the week.

Holderer:
James, Alex c, Ben, Gareth, Alex N, Jasmine, Cameron, Laura, Tim Z

Von Braun: Caitlin, Sam, Ashliegh, Yin Zhou, Bojana, Paulina, Tara ...
plus Pamela from Virginia, Montse from Alabama, Dagny from Indianapolis,
Patrick from Birmingham Al.

Von Tiesenhausen:
Stephen, Emma, Tim O, Adam, Jonathan .. plus RJ from Indianapolis, Bekka
from Masscchusetts, Verhelst from Huntsville, Daniel from Nth Carolina,
Clay from Indianapolis, Alyssa from Florida, Jill from Indianapolis.

They all seem to be getting on really well and integrating the new people
into their various groups. Last night I saw them begin the rocket making
task. In groups of three or four they have to design a two stage rocket to
carry an egg into 'space' but with a limited budget for materials. They
were all busy making sketches and as James said, 'its like an egg drop on
steroids!'

Here is the day one programme for Hoderer:

6.30 am Wake up
7.00 Breakfast ... scrambled eggs, potato tots, scone, cereal, orange
juice, banana
7.30 Engineering challenge ... rockets 2
9.00 Alpha mission training ... learning to use the shuttle simulators
10.30 Low ropes course
12.00 PPP/patch ... no idea what this is!
12.30 lunch
1.00pm Flight suits ... get fitted with their blue suits
1.30 Official space camp photo
2.00 Engineering challenge, ablative shielding
3.30 Lecture .. Orbiter systems
4.30 Museum mission to Mars simulator ride
5.00 Dinner ... last night was hamburger, salad, ice cream, sticky
chocolate cake, crackers, apple
5.30 Bravo mission training ... 2nd shuttle sim session
7.00 Charlie mission training
8.30 Delta mission training
10.00 prep for bed
10.30 lights out .... knackered!

So you can see there is plenty going on. Von T do Scuba at 5pm today, and
they all rotate through all the activities.
We went down to see the low ropes course this morning ... at 7.30am! with
von B, and they really do it well. They have a series of team building,
problem solving challenges ... like getting the whole group from one
'island' to another with only 2 short planks. For each activity the
instructor selects a leader (we saw Tara as leader today), and sends the
others away while she is given the task. Then she has to lead the team
through the challenge. Afterwards they have a proper de-brief and discuss
how the group and leader performed. Tara and her group did really well,
all working very cooperatively and supporting each other.
Later this morning we saw Cameron and Gareth getting instructions in the
shuttle cockpit on their roles as pilot and commander. Once again
excellent camp councilors, explaining well all they had to learn ... when
to hit which switch, when to call mission control, what do do at different
altitudes etc.

I am trying to set up the trip to the shuttle launch in Florida, and our
mini bus operator says she can get us there, so I will be using the
contingency money to pay for this ... if that is ok with parents? Will let
you know the exact cost as soon as I am able. I will contact Disney and
see if we can rearrange our YES programme on that morning, but we may just
have to lose it. The kids seem very enthusiastic about the possibility of
seeing a launch.

That's all for now, we teachers feel rather redundant, but its great to
see the kids getting right into it.

Cheers

David