What goes up, must come down!

The National Water Rocket competition took place last week and once again we entered the competition which has now become an annual event on our calendar. With a Cub, Scout and Explorer team, some revamped rocket launchers and an ever keen strategy we had high hopes of winning this year.

Arriving in Teddington in plenty of time allowed some last minute tweaks to the launch tactics, wind measurements and trajectory alignments. Round 1 then beckoned and selecting the best rockets it was all systems go as the pressure was 'pumped' up and the rockets launched towards the target zone.

Scout and Explorer rockets landed on target with the Cub rocket falling through a black hole. Round two fared better for the Cubs landing on target together with the Scout rocket. For the Explorer rocket it was disaster. The flight time (time in the air) was good but it completely overshot the landing zone and was last seen orbiting Mars.

Round 3 saw all three rockets landing in the zone and then came the finale with the egg rocket. This round was all about launching an egg and safely landing it unbroken. Having been carefully swathed in cotton wool and extra padding, and egg-statically (sorry couldn't resist!) unwrapped the Cub and Scout egg remained intact whilst the Explorer egg was clearly scrambled.

Sadly, despite all our best efforts, we didn't amass enough points on the day with the overall score being that the Cubs came 6th, Scouts came 8th and the Explorers finishing in 11th. So in our own little '17th' competition well down to the Cubs for winning.

We did, however, come away with one trophy. For the third year running the Explorer team won the Special Award for the best launcher - electronically controlled!