Who knew rocket science boiled down to pop bottles, duct tape and broken CDs?

That’s what six 4-H members from three counties found out Thursday when they took part in a space camp at the Muskogee County Oklahoma State University Extension office. The members spent the morning making rockets out of 2-liter bottles, with the CDs taped to them as fins. They used round metal washers as weights.

“I put the washers in a cone shape to be more aerodynamic,” said Kenny Duke, of Broken Arrow’s Young Farmers and Ranchers 4-H Club. He said he set his three CD fins close to the bottle “so it will spin like a football.”

The members also built electronic robots, which looked like the movie character WALL• E, out of Lego blocks and used video technology and remote control to move them around obstacles.

In today’s 4-H, kids are almost as likely to manipulate a robot around obstacles as they are to manipulate a pig around a show arena. It’s all part of the organization’s Science, Engineering and Technology program, an effort to attract a greater variety of youngsters and direct them to careers. The nationwide goal is to prepare one million young people to excel in these fields by 2013.

“We’re trying to promote new areas in 4-H,” said Rick Clovis, extension educator with the Creek Nation 4-H program. “What people think about 4-H is livestock and agriculture. We are expanding to other areas with all the technological things available, GPS, geocaching.”

Geocaching is a “treasure hunt” that uses GPS, or global positioning system technology, to follow the route.

“4-H is about youth development, not just how to raise a hog or keep a cattle ranch, though agriculture is still an important part,” Clovis said.

Eufaula eighth-grader Reed Clark said he’d like to have a career in technology.

“We three are most interested in the robotics,” he said, pointing to the two boys sitting next to him.

But Reed seemed just as interested in his rocket.

Unlike Kenny’s fixed-fin model, Reed’s had four floppy fins.

“I think this will help guide it, give it more spin,” Reed said as he moved a CD fin back and forth. “I have four washers to weigh it down.”