Brothers Stephen, 8, and Kevin Ero, 11, tried time after time, but their pop-bottle rocket kept fizzling and not blasting. Change the bottle; pump in more air; pour some water in nothing would work for the elementary rocketeers. Then they switched bike pumps, pressurized their homemade projectile to 40 pounds-per-square-inch (PSI) and finally sent it hurtling into the air before it touched down on Jerome Avenue.

The brothers were taking part in the rocket science camp put on by Clatsop Community Colleges Kids Camp and physics instructor Pat Keefe. The camp series, full to the brim with budding young scientists, concludes Tuesday with a sold-out class on robots.

You can do really dangerous things, said younger brother Stephen Ero about what he enjoys most in the camp. He and his older sibling have attended the two previous camps, including one about creating circuits for light switches with different types of batteries and another about the changing phases of substance, from ice to liquid to gas.

Im looking for how much theyre modifying what theyre doing, said Keefe about what he looks for in the rather freeform rocket camp. If it (the rocket) makes the roof, thats a sign of success.

And indeed, at least a dozen rockets shot more than 15 meters into the air and landed on top of Towler Hall, from the childrens launching pad in the buildings yard. The trick for the students was figuring out the right amount of water to pour into the makeshift rockets, pumping them to the right PSI and releasing their string trigger lines from the right angle.

Helping them was Upward Bound student and Warrenton High School senior Courtney Lofton, who kept tabs on the students and assisted in their experimentation throughout the science camp series.

Its been fun being with the kids, said Lofton, adding that these are a some of the same experiments she did going into her freshman year of high school. It gives me community service hours, which helps with scholarships, obviously.

Upward Bound is a precollege support and preparation program that serves high school students from low-income families and high school students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree.

Courtney was awesome, said Keefe of the need for more Upward Bound volunteers in his camps. I need three more Courtneys.

The bottle rockets might be one of the simplest experiments Keefe oversees. His classes learned earlier about how to wire batteries to lights and how to change a gas to a liquid to a solid.

We home school, so we take advantage of all these opportunities we can, said Shannon Meik, whose daughter Olivia took part in Keefes classes. We moved here from the (San Francisco) Bay Area. There were so many things to do, we had to pick and choose.

The pickings are a bit slimmer in Astoria, and the mother of two said camps keep getting cancelled because of a lack of enrollment, including Writing Rites: Journey into Storytelling, CCCs previously planned writing camp. Her 15-year-old daughter, who she describes as a science geek taking microbiology courses at the college, tipped her off to Keefes classes.

I think most of the success falls on the shoulders of that one man, said math instructor Phil Ero about why he enrolled his sons in the science camps.

Teachers experience

Keefe has taught at CCC for more than 20 years. In the 1990s, he put on a similar series of science camps through the Astoria Parks and Recreation Department with the assistance of Upward Bound.

It was incredibly popular, said Keefe. The class would fill up a day after registration opened.

He even earned the coveted Thousand Thanks award from Margaret Frimoth as part of KMUNs Troll Radio Review. Keefe said his reputation in the community is part of why his classes have been so successful. This is the first science camp hes hosted in several years.

He finishes the series of science camps Tuesday with students creating a Wall-Hugging Mouse, a small robot students create that will scutter across the floor and change direction after coming into contact with another object.

I certainly like the freedom of physics, he said. Its always fun and engaging. Other subjects, by their nature, tend to be more confined. Art would be a good place to expand the summer camp offerings.

In case students missed Keefes summer camp series, theres at least one other opportunity approaching to play with water-powered rockets. The Sunset Empire Parks and Recreation District will hold a water rocketry class 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 6 to 8 at the Bob Chisholm Community Center 1140 Broadway in Seaside. The class costs $40 for residents and $60 for nonresidents. To register, call 503-738-3311.