Last Monday, Sippican School students participating in the afterschool space club, ‘Into Orbit’, had the opportunity to launch homemade bottle rockets thanks to engineers from Lockheed Martin.
‘Into Orbit’ Space Club is currently running for the second year in a row. Students in grades 5 and 6 spend 12 weeks learning about robotics and coding, using First Lego League curriculum and EV3 robots, as well as participating in space-themed STEM challenges. This club was started thanks to the generosity of Lockheed Martin, and is run by Lockheed Martin employee and Tri-STEM non-profit founder Allie Goodman, and Sippican School teachers Chelsey Lawrence (Enrichment) and Heather Sullivan (grade 4). Additionally, many Lockheed Martin employees volunteer their time and talents for the hour-and-a-half space club each week to coach the students including Emma Miller (Operations Engineer), Karissa Magnacca (Operations Engineer), Tony Yu (Mechanical Engineer), Charles Christian (Electrical Engineer), and long-time volunteer Caty Duncan (Electrical Engineer).
The bottle rocket launch was a special opportunity for students thanks to Nate Fowler, Mechanical Engineer at Lockheed Martin. As part of this multi-week project, he taught students how bottle rockets work. Students got to design their own fins and nosecones, and pressurize them using bike pumps. The rockets were launched on homemade launch pads designed by the engineer.