Bomb camp proves to be a blast

SOCORRO, N.M. (KRQE) - Campers are having a blast at a unique summer camp in Socorro, N.M.—literally.

In New Mexico Tech's first Explosives Camp, students from across America learn all about the many uses of explosives and help blow stuff up.

Jaclyn Page of Albuquerque is one of a dozen high school students spending an explosive week at the college.

"I was just so amazed by the stuff we could do, and the car bomb was my favorite thing," Page said.

New Mexico Tech is home to one of the country's top explosives labs.

There's a shortage of explosives experts in the world, and the school hopes the camp will help recruit some talent.

"Not everybody understands that there are lots and lots of ways to use explosives other than just blowing things up," Christa Hockensmith with NM Tech said.

Before they handle the real thing, students must strap on antic-static devices that ground them, flesh to the floor, so they don't make sparks when they touch energetic materials.

Just in case, some staff members stay outside.

At camp, students learn how to rate an explosive's sensitivity to electricity, the friction of being rubbed on something and to being dropped.

"I didn't know they weren't that sensitive, some of them I did not know. I thought you could just shoot it and boom," camper Tyler New said. "But from what I've seen here, a lot of it is not really that sensitive."

Most of the campers were already considering careers involving explosives, and for them camp is sealing the deal.

A field trip to a railway widening project at Abo Canyon shows in detail how engineers use explosives to move mountains.

"There's a purpose behind every explosion and you have to know what that purpose is and you have to not take anything else down with that explosion," Dale Proctor said.

Organizers hope the lessons learned by campers will be put to work in a few years, when they return for a longer tenure at NM Tech.