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East Elementary Rocket Podcast - 2/6/26
East Elementary GT Podcast
Viking Rockets: We Pressed the Button!
A Gifted & Talented Rocketry Reflection
CALLA:
Hi everyone! I’m Calla, and today… we finally launched our Viking rockets!
CORVIN:
And I’m Corvin, and by launched, she means they went WHOOSH into the sky and did not explode the school.
CALLA:
Which is always a good goal.
CORVIN:
For weeks—and I mean every single Friday—we learned about rockets. Rocket parts, rocket engines, rocket noses…
CALLA:
And Earth’s atmosphere! Like the troposphere, where we live, and the stratosphere, where weather balloons hang out like, “What’s up?”
CORVIN:
We also learned about the design process, which is a fancy way of saying: build it, fix it, rebuild it, and don’t glue your fingers together.
CALLA:
Launch day finally arrived, and everyone carefully slid their rocket onto the guide pole.
CORVIN:
Carefully. Like… EXTREMELY carefully.
CALLA:
Because if you break it on launch day, your heart breaks a little too.
CORVIN:
Mr. Malloy helped connect the ignition wires to the engines at the bottom of our rockets.
CALLA:
Those engines were small…
CORVIN:
…but mighty. Like angry, thumb-sized dragons.
CALLA:
Once everyone was behind the 15-foot audience boundary—
CORVIN:
Safety first! We like our eyebrows!
CALLA:
—we did a countdown.
CALLA & CORVIN (together):
5… 4… 3… 2… 1… BLAST OFF!
CORVIN:
Each student got to press the ignition button, and the rockets shot up over East Elementary!
CALLA:
Other classrooms watched from behind their windows like, “Is that a bird? Is that a plane?”
CORVIN:
Nope. It’s a Viking rocket made by third graders.
CALLA:
At the very top of the rocket’s flight, the nose cone popped off—
CORVIN:
—and out came the bright orange streamer!
CALLA:
The streamer helped us track where our rockets landed.
CORVIN:
And by “track,” she means “run after it like explorers on a mission.”
CALLA:
We traveled to recover our rockets and held them proudly like real space engineers.
CORVIN:
It was a fun, exciting, and educational day full of science, space, and countdowns.
CALLA:
And the best part?
CORVIN:
They actually worked!
CALLA & CORVIN (together):
Thanks for listening—and keep looking up! 🚀
