Belgium Trip

Omar Elmalky, Jayce Wimalathas

All students of SY (Grades 6 to Grade 12) went on a field trip to the Euro Space Center in Belgium Mr Tim Anderson and Dr Vaishali organized it with the supporting supervisors being Ms Eve and Mr. Tim Peters. The trip lasted for 3 daysfrom 5th of February to the 8th of February We went there to do activities and to learn about outer space The most popular activity among the students was the centrifuge rotor, which went fast enough to stick you to the wall Most people enjoyed it because they liked spinning but some got really dizzy. The planetarium on the other hand had some criticism of being boring

The activities we did were planned out and tightly packed. Everyday we woke up and got ready from 6:30 to 7:20 and went to eat our breakfast from 7:30 to 8:30 Our first three hours of activities started at 8:30 and then we would have lunch for 1 hour We had activities again from 12:30 to 15:30, then a 30 minute break, and from 16:00 to 17:00 our last activity of the day. From there on we had dinner and freetime, which would sometimes be spent watching movies or playing games together. Then we had to go to bed.

During these days we participated in many different activities like the centrifuge rotor The highlight of this was the full speed setting in which we would stand inside with our back against the wall The speed would pick up enough for us to be stuck against the wall, which was demonstrated through the floor going down by 1 meter. Rotation was also present in the rotating chair, which spinned us for about 45 seconds When it stopped we would have to find a smiley face on a whiteboard across the room, which was difficult because of how dizzy we were Some even had the physical reaction of our eyes appearing to spin.

The moonwalk was like a simulator of what it would feel like on the moon - it felt like we were jumping higher The gravity wall was an activity that we did to simulate what astronauts experience in space We had to repair a satellite while being without gravity. We used solar panels for the satellite to gain power and we had to connect cables to complete it.

In the rocket workshop we were shown how to craft rockets that would actually be able to launch a couple of meters off the ground. We worked in pairs and were allowed to decorate them to our hearts content. Some other activities included the multi-axis chair, the balloon cars, and the space shuttle

On the last day we had a short Kahoot quiz to see what we remembered and received a certificate. Then we launched our rockets and left for school. The rockets were like fireworks and we launched each one individually and once they flew up a parachute came out to land safely We were able to bring it back home if it landed on the ground, though some turned into “tree decoration” We arrived around 17:30 at the SY building.

In conclusion most of the people that went on the trip enjoyed it and really enjoyed the activities and would want to go again or do trips like this again