HESA Space Camp Day 5

It was our final day of camp and while I was very excited I was also a little sad to leave this awesome place where I had made such great friends.  We started our day with a presentation about Space Camp and the opportunities it can give our students.  I would love to one day be able to bring a group of kids back to attend this camp.  We were then treated to an Imax showing of Journey to Space.  I have been to Imax shows before, but this one was beyond any I had ever seen.  The movie was great and the theater was a dome rather than a flat screen so we really felt like we were part of the movie.

We were then taken to our final activity for the week...X-Prize.  In this activity we were to use materials to build a rover and a lander.  We were crunched for time on this activity so we had to move fast and none of us felt very good about the effectiveness of our lander or rover.  Much to our surprise when we dropped our lander our rover was intact.  Then when we rolled our rover off the ramp we had success once again.

 






It was then time to head over to the Davidson Center for graduation.  At this time we learned that we would be hearing from a guest speaker who was also going to sign autographs and take pictures with us.  It was THE Homer Hickam!!!  I was so excited I was almost running to get there.  I got a signed picture of Mr. Hickam along with a photo.  He also signed a copy of his book Rocket Boys for each of us.  It was a great end to a great week!

Homer Hickam and Me

Mr. Hickam reading from Rocket Boys

After the presentation we were ready to graduate from Honeywell Space Camp.  During graduation there were several speakers who talked about the importance of teachers and the impact that we have on our students.  There are two awards given during graduation.  One of them is an award for the team who had the most successful missions.  Our team laughed at this because we knew landing with an open-hatch probably wouldn't get us recognition with this award...Team Columbus did not win.  The winning team was awarded a pin for their flight suits.  The other award that is given is an award for the team that showed the best engineering skills throughout the week.  This award is called the Commander's Cup and the recipients of this award receive a patch for their flight suit.  Going into graduation we had no idea awards would be given so we were very surprised when Team Columbus was awarded the Commander's Cup!!!  Each graduate also received a certificate of completion and a Mars pin for our suits.

Graduation

After graduation, Honeywell treated us to dinner and a party underneath the Saturn V rocket.  We ate together as a team and had a blast dancing the night away with a live band.  We said our goodbyes as people began to head back to the dorms.  The next morning was a travel day and we knew there would be no time for goodbyes in the morning.  

The Astronaut Life

 One of my team members, Jenny, took this picture.  It is a great picture that sums up our week together.  

Jenny also bought the monkey in the picture above.  Our team is going to mail the monkey (we named him Cmmdr. Patches) each month to each team member.  We will take pictures of ourselves with Cmmdr. Patches in our town and send him to the next place.  I could not have picked a better team than the one that was randomly picked for me.  The members of Team Columbus are absolutely one of the reasons my time at camp was so memorable.  Commander Livers to Huntsville...over and out.