Eric V. Bulmier, program director of Pow!Science!, helps third grader Jeffrey Beaucege launch his rocket as Luca Marino watches.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

SCITUATE — Robert Goddard would have been proud.

The late American rocket pioneer labored for years in the early 20th century to produce a working rocket. It took students at the Hope Elementary School only two weeks to achieve the same feat.

Of course, they had an advantage – they started from kits.

The students are enrolled in an afterschool enrichment program on Monday and Wednesday sponsored by the Hope PTA, according to Fran Thuotte, chairwoman of the program.

Thuotte said the group turned to Eric Bulmier, of POW Science in Middletown.

“It’s Pow! – just like the old Batman show,” said Bulmier, a former teacher who now specializes in providing science programs for afterschool groups just like the Hope PTA’s.

He said the rockets are powered by a solid propellant. They’re manufactured by a company named Estes, and “they are the 800-pound gorilla of the model rocket hobby world.”

There is another charge that pops a parachute off the rocket at the top of its ascent, in this case 200 feet. Some model rockets can hit 1,000 feet, but Bulmier said he picked a lower-powered version so that the parachutes would not drift so far in the wind. Sometimes they can wind up high in a tree or in some other, perhaps more embarrassing, situation.

“The kids have asked what if the rocket goes over the chainlink fence around the schoolyard,” Thuotte said. “I told them we can deal with that issue, too.”

“You don’t want them to go too terribly high,” Bulmier said. “They are very sturdy. The nice thing is, the fuel is completely expended by time they fall, so there’s no fire hazard. It’s a matter of not wanting to lose a little kid’s rocket, although I did amply prepare them for the possibility. Sometimes you watch a parachute go drifting off over the trees.”

Bulmier said he has worked with rockets before, at his company’s activity center in Middletown.

This was the first time he had worked with them at a school however, he said, and it was by Thuotte’s request.

The children get to take their rockets home. A trip to a hobby store and an expenditure of about $8 will buy three more rocket engines.

“The kit comes with either two or three engines. We will use one today. It also comes with a launch pad and electronic launcher. The launcher is a wire control. All it does is safely sets up a short circuit inside the engine, which ignites the propellant. The kids stand 25 feet away. Then they get to press the button, and ‘Whoosh!’ “