Dream Science Trips | Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge

Since I live about 11 miles from Washington DC, I was the only 2003 finalist who didn't travel to the DCYSC by plane. I guess this trip to the Air Academy in Wisconsin more than evened things out!
I stayed in this lodge with about 40 kids from all over the country—I still stay in touch with some of them. Each day we split up into groups and did activities related to physics and aerodynamics.
In one of our activities, we built bottle rockets. We had to try to launch a hard-boiled egg inside it and return it unharmed. Mine worked nearly perfectly: the egg only had two or three small cracks on one side when I finished. I even won the "Mr. Aerodynamics" award at the camp.
We also took part in physical challenges. Here, we had to climb with a partner to the top of a huge rope ladder. Everyone took turns climbing and holding the safety ropes for other climbers. I'm not crazy about heights, so it was pretty scary!
My favorite part of the trip was getting to fly this small plane with my flight instructor, Darren. He handled takeoff and landing, but I took control for a while during the flight. It was so cool!
This was my first time in an airplane cockpit. Darren took this picture of me at the controls of the plane. My research and experience at DCYSC's aviation-related challenges really paid off.
At these computers, we ran flight-simulator programs. We even got to simulate multi-plane missions!
Believe it or not, President Bush was actually in Wisconsin that week. On its way to pick him up, the Marine One helicopter did a flyby of our camp.

Visiting EAA was such a great experience—I learned so much about aviation!