By Brianna Arnold

GALWAY–Nothing exciting ever happens at Galway. We’re your typical high school, with less money and no football team. We strive to keep JV sports alive and take pride in our badminton tournaments. These events are what make Galway, Galway. However, we have yet another awesome experience that we can say is only Galway, only our school. Thanks to Mr. Darlington, we now have an annual rocket unit in physics. Physics is an optional class for seniors, and I recommend that you take it when you become a senior. Yes the work is difficult, but in several college interviews, the schools told me that they look for kids who took physics in high school. It makes all your work worth it because you want to be accepted into a good school. You should also take physics because science is fun! (Or at least that’s the illusion Mr. D wants us to have with the rocket project…and maybe he’s paying me to say this!)

Anyway, when the physics class found out that they were making rockets, we were all taken aback. We thought, rockets, we did that in 6th grade Mr. Darlington, we’ve moved on to bigger and better things. However, the rocket project isn’t your typical “rocket project” You use household items to create your pride and joy, your rocket. Within the classes, there were competitions to see whose rocket would travel the furthest. For example, my rocket was made with dog food and cardboard fins. It was kind of crappy, but it went over 300 feet! The grand prize winners were Harry Griffin and Bryce Kingsley, whose rocket flew over a whopping 600 feet. For this, they were presented with the Golden Rocket. Mr. D presented this rocket to Harry on GTV during the morning broadcast, as you may have seen. Congrats, Harry and Bryce! The Carl Sagan has served you well.

So maybe you’re wondering why Mr. Darlington thought, “Hey, my kids want to have fun in physics, fine. So, let’s do a rocket project.” The project…it actually was fun. It wasn’t one of those cliche “fun” projects that teachers tell you to do, that you wait until the night before to actually accomplish. You know that project? Yeah, we all do. Always remember, math IS actually fun.

Anyway, this rocket requires time and effort, but launching brought our class together, and it was awesome to see that our hard work, with materials we found around our house, could accomplish so much. And we LEARNED! Yeah. I know. When asked, Mr. D said that this project was done so that his students could have fun and learn, and that’s what we did. In the kinematics unit, we find out how to calculate time and distance and velocity…all that jazz. The rocket project was a real-life application of the knowledge we needed for this project. Whoa, so you mean physics can relate to everyday life? Yes, Johnny, yes it can.

Mr. D said his favorite part of the project was that we learned. My favorite part was the building. I didn’t feel like building it, but once I did, I liked knowing that everything I did had a purpose. And after we calculated all our results, we found errors, and next year’s class will learn from our mistakes. And the next years will make mistakes, and the sophomores will learn from them and so on. The rocket day last Saturday, was a way to get kids, even younger than chemistry students, interested in taking physics. I even had the pleasure of meeting a kindergartener interested in the rocket launching. I think we have a future Carl Sagan. (Ask Mr. D!) And I have to say, on a personal note, when the elementary schoolers watch your rocket soar, and they say “Holy crap! That went far!” There’s a little part of you that’s like “YEAH,” because someone thought your rocket was cool!

Overall, the unit was great, and we got extras point for helping out on Saturday. Other than that we got bagels and coffee, and let’s not forget our real-life application of physics. Sure we don’t all need to know about rockets, but there is more where that came from. If you thought the rockets were cool, ask about becoming part of the physics class next year. If you weren’t interested in the rockets, it doesn’t matter, Mr. D is a pretty cool guy, and you learn a lot from him. Pretty much, just take physics, it’s a good decision. If it wasn’t, there’d be a “What Grinds My Gears” about it.

Yay Physics!