AMBOY – Through his 17 years of being a science teacher at Amboy High School, James Brown knows what classes his students enjoy more than others.

Engineering Technology and Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) usually win out.

This semester’s Engineering Technology class highlighted a month of building rockets in class by launching them in front of the school on Monday, May 6.

“It’s good for them because they can build what they want to build,” Brown said. “I just push them to help them and pay the expenses. This started in my STEM class. This year they’re building a 12-tube T-shirt gatling gun. The cheerleaders wanted one, so we’re building it.

“I know it’s fun for them to build projects. And part of the fun is they get to see the end result and it if worked. They get to say, ‘Hey, I did it.” 

After wind affected the two launches on Monday, the next launch was pushed to Tuesday.

The class members didn’t mind because it just means another day of being outside and having fun launching rockets.

Here is what a few of the freshmen students said:

Ty Florschuetz

“It’s cool because we got to build something and see it work right. We put a lot of time in them just for them to blow up. It was cool to see them in the air.”

Gage Mumm

“It’s really fun to launch them, see them come back down, seeing what problems there are and fixing them. The biggest issue we had was parachutes not deploying. If the parachutes don’t deploy, the rocket will come down to the ground very fast and shatter.”

Henry Nichols

“It’s always fun to launch rockets and see how they work out. Sometimes they blow up over homes and sometimes they don’t. This is one of the best classes in high school.”

Aaron Costner

“Being in this class and working on projects is the highlight of the day. We get to make rockets and all kind of cool stuff. I really enjoy the different kinds of projects we get to make.”