New Seminars Take Off During Spring at Sage
New Seminars Take Off During Spring at Sage
Spring at Sage 2018 featured a number of new seminars where students could explore everything from astronomy to rocket science.
One of the more popular new seminars was Dr. Brent Dodson’s Build and Fly Your Own RC Airplane. When Dodson first pitched the idea for the seminar, he didn’t know too much about RC planes. But the more he researched it, the more he realized how cool this could be for students.
“And, of course, in order to make it work, I had to teach myself how to do it,” Dodson said. “Not just how to build it, but how to fly it.”
It became a bit of a hobby for him throughout the year as he put the seminar together. He found help from a community of fellow RC airplane enthusiasts.
“Everyone who does this as a hobby is pretty generous; everyone gives you tips. I go to my local park and try to fly my plane and then I meet people and ask them questions and they help me out,” Dodson said.
After a couple days spent working on the airplane bodies and getting the electronics just right, a group of students tested their planes out for the first time on Friday, June 1 on Ramer Field.
On Monday, June 4, the group went out to a flying field in Trabuco Canyon, home of the Trabuco Flyers Club.
Dodson hopes the students get into this hobby just like he has, and said the seminar will be a great jumping off point for them.
“Some of them are going to get into this, and they’ll be able to have the tools to keep going,” he said.
But RC airplanes weren’t the only thing flying over Ramer Field during Spring at Sage. The new seminar This is Rocket Science! had students building and launching homemade rockets up into the air - often at very impressive heights.
Science teacher Brendan Barrow, one of the faculty advisors for the seminar, said he loved watching the students make cool rocket designs and getting to build one himself.
“Probably my favorite part though was watching a wayward rocket spiral out over the entire school to the student parking lot,” he said. (Nobody was injured.)
Other new seminars this year included Astronomy with a Historical View, which involved an overnight trip to Mt. Wilson Observatory; California Car Culture, which hosted a Cars & Coffee event in the Sage Hill parking lot; Out of the Box, where students developed and brought to life their own board game; and Sage in Balance, where students learned about all the different ways to live a balanced lifestyle.
To view photos from this year’s Spring at Sage, please click here.
Sage Hill School
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