In This Contest, It Does Takes a Rocket Scientist

A sign on the Science Building at Cypress College on Friday said, “Welcome Olympians.”

No, it wasn’t tryouts for the Olympic Games. The event being co-sponsored by Cypress and Fullerton colleges was competition of another sort.

“We’re holding games and events for high school and junior high science students,” Cypress College Science Dean Michael G. Jacobs said. “It’s the Regional Science Olympiad, and we’ve got about 300 students from all over Orange County.”

Winners in the daylong events can go on to state-level science competition. “This type of thing gets the students all jazzed up about science and engineering,” he said.

Throughout the morning, visiting students clustered in groups inside the Science Building, waiting for various events to begin.

“I get a little nervous because of the competition, but I like it,” said Josh Bogue, 15, a freshman at El Modena High in Orange. “I’m thinking about becoming an engineer. I like science because I find it interesting--learning new stuff.”

Nearby, Jennifer Frederick, 14, of Santiago Middle School in Orange said she likes science “because I like experimenting in things. . . . It’s fun to try different things I’ve never done before.” She said that she is not sure if her career will be in science, but that an event like the Olympiad allowed her to learn more about the field.

Outdoors, on the campus, one of the competitive events was the “bottle rocket competition.” Adult instructors explained that no explosive devices, such as fireworks, were involved. Instead, students built rockets out of plastic drink bottles. Water and compressed air provided the launch materials.

When a rocket launched, it separated in midair and sent out a smaller capsule floating from a parachute.

“Our teacher showed us how to build these,” said Gerald Kim, a 14-year-old student at El Rancho Middle School in Anaheim who is thinking of becoming an engineer. “It’s fun.”

Two San Juan Capistrano students, Matt Swan and Lex Deschuytter, both 13, from Marco F. Forster Middle School, initially had trouble getting their rocket to launch. But on the second try, the green plastic bottle shot skyward and dispatched its parachute-bearing payload.

Swan said the rocket was off-center on the launch pad on the first try. “It was fun experimenting what we had to do,” he said. But his partner Deschuytter interjected: “Our success was mediocre. That’s the word. We were happy to see it fly, but unhappy to see it come down so soon.”

A Cypress College chemistry instructor, Tom Lupin, told Swan and Deschuytter not to become discouraged and to learn from their flight tests. “Just keep on experimenting,” Lupin said. “That’s what science is all about.”