I began my association with rocketry at age 10 in 4-H in Indiana. I continued building throughout my 4-H career (age 18). I don't recall my first rocket, but it may have been my Big Bertha modified to use a "C" at the suggestion of my rocket leader (Steve Ratcliff - "Where are you man!"). This gave it slow, realistic liftoff. After the first 3 or 4 years, I began making scratch built rockets. Some good, some not so good. My most ambitious consisted of a tri-fin 3 engine cluster. The engines were actually mounted into the fins. The ejection charges were "piped" to the body tube and the parachute deployed from the rear. Functionally, everything worked. but the separation of the engines caused lift off to be very unstable so it never got more than 2 or 3 feet off the ground. After a college hiatus I returned to 4-H and rocketry, but this time as a leader and teacher. After a few years of this, I was asked to be a judge of the 4-H rocketry project at the Indiana State Fair. I continued doing this until I moved to Illinois in 2005. Before long, I was asked to judge the county 4-H aerospace project. The kids were largely on their own and I became frustrated with the quality of the rockets I was seeing coming across the judging table. For the next couple of years I held workshops to teach, assist and encourage the kids. About 5 years ago, I started a dedicated 4-H Rocketry club called "Tri-County Rocketeers" After an initial shaky start, the club is going pretty strong. We meet monthly where I usually lecture on a brief topic and spend the rest of the time building. One of the things the kids have really enjoyed is working on a 10' float rocket. It is scaled from an Alpha III. It'll never obviously fly, but it does look cool, especially when equipped with dry ice for a smoking engine.
