Category Archives: Rocketry

Education, Rocketry, Rockets

Rocket Week at NASA Wallops – students/educator build payloads for sounding rockets

An announcement from NASA Wallops:

Students and Teachers Become Rocket Scientists at
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

WASHINGTON — More than 120 students and educators will delve into the world of rocket science June 15-21 during Rocket Week at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Activities during the week will include a RockOn! workshop for 50 university and community college-level participants, and the Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students (WRATS) for a high school audience. All attendees will participate in a sounding rocket launch scheduled between 5:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. EDT June 20.

“Rocket Week brings together students and teachers from across the country to experience first-hand the exciting world of rocketry,” said Joyce Winterton, senior advisor for education and leadership development at Wallops. “For students, it provides them valuable experience to blend with academics for their future STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. The educators gain valuable experience to expand their curriculum in the classroom and mentor students for STEM majors and careers.”

RockOn! Introduces participants to building small experiments that can be launched on suborbital sounding rockets. Now in its sixth year, the workshop is conducted in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia.

“Working with NASA, we have developed a step approach to expand the skills needed for students to enter STEM careers,” said Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. “RockOn! is the first step, followed by RockSat-C and then RockSat-X. Each step is technically more challenging than the previous one, allowing the students to expand the skills needed to support the aerospace industry.”

The RockOn! participants will build standardized experiments to be launched on a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket. The 35-foot-tall rocket is expected to fly to an altitude of about 75 miles. After launch and payload recovery, the participants will conduct preliminary data analysis and discuss their results.

Nine custom-built Rocksat-C experiments, developed at universities that previously participated in a RockOn! Workshop, also will fly inside a payload canister on the rocket. About 50 students who designed and built the experiments will be attend Rocket Week.

Also attending will be university participants in RockSat-X. They are previous Rocksat-C participants who will fly six custom-built experiments aboard a sounding rocket from Wallops in August.

In the WRATS program, 20 high school teachers from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and the District of Columbia will learn about the dynamics of rocketry and the science gained from suborbital sounding rockets to reinforce STEM concepts they teach in their classrooms. They also will attend the planned sounding rocket launch.

These programs continue NASA’s investment in the nation’s education programs by supporting the goal of attracting and retaining students in STEM disciplines critical to the future of space exploration.

For more information about the WRATS programs, visit:  http://education.wff.nasa.gov

The RockOn! and WRATS workshops are supported by NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program. RockOn! also is supported by NASA’s Office of Education and NASA’s National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia.

For more information on RockOn! and RockSat, visit: http://spacegrant.colorado.edu/rockon

For more information about NASA’s education programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education

Education, Rocketry

Vanderbilt team takes top prize in NASA’s Student Launch Challenge

The results of this year’s  Student Launch Projects competition are in:

Vanderbilt Takes Top Prize in NASA Student Launch Challenge

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Aerospace Club of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., took first prize in the 2013 annual NASA Student Launch Projects challenge, in which student teams design, build and fly small rockets with science payloads to an altitude of 1 mile and return them safely to Earth.

After two consecutive third-place finishes, Vanderbilt beat 35 other colleges and universities to win the $5,000 top prize, provided by ATK Aerospace Group of Promontory, Utah. The University of Louisville in Kentucky and Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, won second and third place, respectively, in the April 21 “launch fest” at Bragg Farms in Toney, Ala., near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

After months of preparation, each team had an opportunity to launch its rocket and payload. NASA judges evaluated the rocket designs based on a series of technical design reviews, the results from the rocket’s flight including altitude, and the operation of the payload. The judges also evaluated each team’s written report and its outreach activities including a website documenting the experience and local educational engagement campaigns to share their enthusiasm for rocketry. The challenge seeks to inspire younger students to pursue technical learning fields, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

“This program is a valuable tool for students and their teachers because they use all the knowledge gained in a classroom setting to tackle a real-world challenge,” said Tammy Rowan, manager of Marshall’s Academic Affairs Office, which manages the rocketry challenge. “They stretch those STEM skills to create a complex machine, which could lead them to a future in the aerospace industry. Plus, their enthusiasm when they finally see their creations fly is inspirational to those who already work in the many different aspects of space exploration.”
In addition to the top prize, the Vanderbilt University team also took home the Best Payload Design for the most creative and innovative payload experiment.

Third-place Tarleton State also won three additional recognitions: the Rookie Award; the Science Mission Directorate Payload Award for most creative and innovative payload design while maximizing safety and science value; and the Best Team Spirit prize, a peer award voted on by all the rocket teams.

Alabama A&M University in Huntsville won the Altitude Award for coming closest to the 1-mile mark without going over — only 11 feet shy of 5,280 feet above ground.

The University of Louisville team won three awards: Best Vehicle Design for the most creative, innovative and safety-conscious rocket; Best Web Design; and the Education Engagement Award. The team from Mississippi State University in Starkville won the Project Review Award for their reviews and formal presentations and also finished in fifth place overall. The student teams voted the University of Nebraska in Lincoln as winner of this year’s Best-Looking Rocket.

NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, Science Mission Directorate and Office of Education, all in Washington, sponsor the Student Launch Projects challenge. ATK provides corporate sponsorship. The National Association of Rocketry provides technical review and launch support.

Hundreds of flight enthusiasts cheered the student rocketeers at the launch site. More than 8,000 individual viewers also watched the event live on Marshall’s UStream channel. Archived launch-day coverage is available at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc

For complete lists of participating students, visit:   http://education.msfc.nasa.gov/slp

Visit NASA Student Launch Projects on Facebook and Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/NASAStudentLaunch and http://twitter.com/SLI_1MILEHIGH

For more information about NASA education projects, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education

Rocketry, Rockets

Video: A day at the FAR Mojave test site

The Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) posted the video below showing highlights of activities at their Mojave test site on Saturday May, 4th. These activities included:

 the launch of a high power sugar fueled rocket and the first successful static firing of a 6″ rocket motor for the Sugar Shot to Space project (the previous two motor tests resulted in CATOs.

Contests and Games, Education, Rocketry

12th Annual NASA Student Launch Initiative competition in Alabama this week

NASA says that “more than 600 students, representing 56 middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in 26 states, will” participate in the 12th annual Student Launch Initiative, this Saturday in Toney, Alabama:

Here is a list of the teams: NASA Student Launch Projects

The event will be webcast at NASA MSFC on USTREAM: Science.