Fun at Crane

CRANE -- Bloomfield Elementary School sixth-grade students designed, built and launched their own rockets Thursday. Most of the rockets, crafted out of clear plastic bottles, left the launch pad as planned with a gush of water flume pushing the mini-space crafts skyward. The hand-crafted rockets were custom-made in about 40 minutes by two-student teams to have their own distinctive wing and cone configuration in hopes of finding the right engineering combination that would provide for the longest flight time. The launch was part of the STEM program at NSWC Crane. STEM is an acronym for Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics -- all key components to making today's students better prepared for an internationally competitive, 21st-century economy.