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| The Klingon Commander (Jensen Caldwell) with the Voyager's Captain working out Strategy on the Command Tactical Screen. The Voyager is one awesome ship! Summer Camp One 2018 |
Farpoint at Renaissance Academy held its first summer space camp on June 25-27: a joint camp between Renaissance Academy and American Heritage School in American Fork. The camp was directed by Alex Debirk, Farpoint's summer camp director. I should also mentioned in passing that Alex is the high school physics teacher at American Heritage. He's one smart cookie. It shouldn't go without saying that Farpoint has a gifted and talented staff of flight directors and supervisors - many of whom have over ten years of space center experience. Rumors are that one of Farpoint's staff has 35 years of simulator experience - mind you, that is only a rumor.
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| The Beta Squadron launching their bottle rockets on their science / simulator day at Renaissance |
The camp consisted of sixteen campers divided into the Alpha and Beta Squadrons. The campers flew a five hour and a 2.5 hour mission in the Voyager at Renaissance Academy and one five hour mission on the Dauntless at the Discovery Space Center at Canyon Grove Academy in Pleasant Grove. The three day camp included a 2.5 hour STEM class taught by Major Larry Vidinha, Renaissance Academy's awarding winning middle / high school science teacher. The Voyager ran "Sleeping Giants," the Dauntless ran "Intolerance" for each squadron.
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| Major Vidinha watches as his cadets use a foot pump to "fuel" their water bottle rockets. |
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| Time to launch. Two of the braver cadets stabilize the launcher while the builder of the rocket stands to the side to pull the release. |
Day 1: The Alpha Squadron arrived at Renaissance, while the Betas went to the Dauntless. The Alphas were "jumpy", a term used by Mr. Debirk. They saw death at every turn - a long, agonizing death; something Space Centers excel in. When the crew first learned of a potential saboteur on board, they shrieked in unisom and darted to the back of the bridge, cowering behind the conference table. Realize the crew was totally at their mercy, the staff took advantage of their lack of discipline and pounced on them. Two intruders were eventually captured and imprisoned in the brig. Spencer climbed up to the top bunk and hid out of sight while the other stood passively near the force field looking as if nothing at all was wrong. The Alpha security guard noticed one of the prisoners was missing when he made his next round. "Where is he?" he demanded from the standing prisoner. Spencer leapt down from the bunk startling the poor security guard into running for his life.
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| The campers confer with communications officer over a miscommunication - something that happens more often than you'd think from such experienced Starfleet officers. |
Later in the mission the plotting control room sent more intruders to the bridge. Once the crew realized what was coming, they did what most young Starfleet officers do, abandoned the bridge en masse and ran for perceived safety of Deck 2 with the vigilant and agile security guard leading the way.
Overall the Voyager's controls ran well. The Alpha's enjoyed "Sleeping Giants." As for the Beta crew, Maeson Busk simply said: "They were great!"
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| The Beta Squadron on the Voyager's Bridge |
Day 2: Alpha Squadron returned to the Voyager and successfully completed the last 2.5 hours of "Sleeping Giants" (a seven hour mission) despite the continued skittishness of the crew. Despite their overwhelming / ever present fear, the Alpha's solved the stickiest problem of the flight on their own.
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| The Alpha Squadron at Canyon Grove on the Dauntless. |
Meanwhile the Beta Squadron was with Major Larry doing experiments with 2 liter and 1-liter water bottle rockets. The crew experimented, and by using calculations and a bit of trial and error they found the optimum amounts of air and water to make their rockets fly to dizzying heights. I heard from reliable sources that the Control Tower at Salt Lake International Airport reported picking up several UFO's in the most northern section of Utah County. Some teams got the rocket to fly very high indeed.
After lunch, the Alphas went to Larry and the Betas started "Sleeping Giants." The flight team noticed a night and day difference with this second crew. They were quiet, focused, and collected.
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| The Beta Left Wing Officer on the Voyager |
Day 3: The Alpha Squadron flew the Dauntless at Canyon Grove Academy, while the Betas finished Sleeping Giants on the Voyager. One of the Betas missed his class and mission yesterday due to an appointment for stitches. His sister took his place. The young man returned on Day 3 with his sister in tow. She had such a good time the previous day that she asked to be added to the crew for the third day. It was good she did, she was the MVP of the squad as the First Officer. She took charge when the captain needed help commanding the ship.
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| The Voyager Control Room on Day 3. All was quiet. Mostly. Alex was having difficulty finding his targets on sensors. |
At the action packed middle part if the mission, the Voyager's controls completely crashed--Interstellar, Mercury, and the Main Server. Fortuna, the goddess of Fortune - a long time Voyager antagonist, was present manifest as a foul smelling vapor. She was up to her usual mischief. Luckily, the ship was so battered at that point in the story from numerous space battles that the meltdown worked perfectly to the story's advantage. We called lunch a bit early while we worked to revive the out-of-shape ship (hadn't flown in weeks, after all). Interstellar came back on, and the crew pushed through to the end without any control or hardware hitches.
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| The Klingon Arrives in the Voyager's Transporter Room. The Security Guard was unsure on opening the door, but with me present with my camera, he had no choice but to find the courage needed and open the door. |
All in all, it was a great camp. The crews had a good time.
Would you, or someone you know want to attend one of Farpoint's summer camps? We still have a few openings on the July 17-19 and the July 31-Aug 2nd camps. Registration is done through the American Heritage School's website. You'll need to sign up for a VeraCode access number to register.
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