At my (state) secondary school, every year on the last week before the summer holidays there was an activities week where you had to pick an activity. There were a lot of different things to do and the cost varied, such as kayaking, skiing, trip to Italy etc… there were also various activities at the school.

Over the years there were fewer options until the whole thing was cancelled, mainly due to health and safety.

Anyway when I was in year 7 I made the choice of spending the week playing with solid fuel model rockets, it helped that it was also a cheaper option.

So with the teachers supervising or rather taking part, the week was spent stuffing rocket engines into cardboard and plastic pipes and launching them, some of which exploded showering shards of plastic over the football pitch.

Someone also wondered whether we could make a rocket powered car, which turned out as a rocket with wheels on it that was launched somewhat unsuccessfully down one of the school paths. I think that one almost got me.

On the last day one of the teachers decided to show us what a dust explosion looked like, so they took all the sawdust from the workshop and put it into a container with a party popper in the side. The rest of the kids and I were stood a good distance away shouting at other kids who were wandering around nearby to keep back. The resulting fireball was awesome.