DO-IT 2026 provided new challenges for many attendees, due to requirements that all energetic product be made on-site, unless they held an ATF license. The first days of the event involved making components for the intended end products - including milling lots of BP and making stars. The first few completed products were shot Wednesday night. Thursday night showed more launches, and by Friday night most people were seeing success.
Attendance was nearly 60, despite apprehension over the new manufacturing rules. The weather was fine all week, although a couple of afternoons were blustery. No tents were blown away or flooded!
With all the focus on the details of manufacturing, few people had extra time for photography. So here are a few highlights of the week.
Hawthorne's racetrack had been well-groomed in advance of our event. With the smaller number of attendees, campsites were set up pretty much wherever groups wanted them to be, given the safety spacing requirements.
Most event attendees worked in small groups to prepare BP, black match, burst, and other elements that were to be part of the finished products. Here, Jane, Dan, Mike, and Dave are making black match from cotton string that had been soaked in a fine BP mixture.
Makers in action! At left, Jane and Dan in the groove, making 5" ball shells using "rubber" stars made during the event. At right, a 4lb rocket takes shape.
Ward proves he is a hands on kind of administrator. How did that Giro grow between here and there?
Rocket line before the storm. Since rockets (and their relatives) can be constructed relatively quickly, with a minimum of equipment, they were the favored product this week.
Mike and Dave made falling leaves into rocket headers.
Since all shell contents had to be manufactured on-site, most stars were single-color, and special effects relied on using combinations of star sizes and colors.
Al Stahler's "beerondola."
This complex shell was launched Saturday evening.
This long-running fountain lit up the rocket line.
DO-IT would not be complete without the creativity of the Jackalopes. Here are some of their creations. See their handiwork, including videos, in this linked online photo album.
Kurt Medlin created several excellent spinning flying things, including this beautiful sparky girondola with a bounce in its flight path. Here are images of its configuration (photo by Kurt) and its flight, below, plus more girondolas by Kurt.
Even low breaks can be entertaining! Here's an example of folks on the rocket line "dancing in the moonlight."
We get it on most every night
When that moon is big and bright
It's a supernatural delight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight
Everybody here is out of sight
They don't bark and they don't bite
They keep things loose, they keep 'em tight
Everybody's dancing in the moonlight
"Dancing in the Moonlight," performed by King Harvest.
Photos/video by Mark Devon and Wanda Garrett unless otherwise noted.