Ready, Set, Launch
It is not rocket science. That is until a group of Creative Inquiry students design and launch a rocket for space flight. The Spaceflight Mission Planning and Rocket Experiment Development Creative Inquiry project, led by Dr. Stephen Kaeppler in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, allows undergraduates to develop skills in space flight design and rocket launching. Combining technical skills and practical experience working in teams helps prepare students for careers in any related field.
Peer mentorship drives the success and direction of this Creative Inquiry project. After experience building rockets, students can stay in the project and become mentors of novice team members.
Austin Smith, a senior physics and mathematics double major, is a founding member and peer mentor in the Creative Inquiry project. He guides the other peer mentors and participants throughout their experiences. “They have different goals they’ll take on– it’s pretty open. All we tell them is you have to launch a rocket, and it needs to take some science,” Smith said. There are several small teams within the project, each selects a different rocket function to manipulate with the ultimate goal to build a complete model. Each team launchs their rocket at the end of the semester.
The skills developed in this Creative Inquiry project will lend themselves to any career the students pursue, whether in the space industry or not. “You have class projects, of course, and you have leadership roles, but being a leader of an actual thing that needs to be built is much different. It’s good industry experience, and I feel like anybody in our group also gets good industry experience,” Smith said.
This project allowed James Hutchison, a senior environmental and natural resources major, and Smith to present at the 25th ESA Symposium on European Rocket and Balloon Programmes and Related Research in Biarritz, France. “It’s the entire rocket and balloon community… it was cool to see, oh, this is what we do in the future if we keep going this way,” Smith said. They shared how they introduce students to the rocket science industry in a presentation titled “Clemson University Student Space Program: Educating Students in the Field of Space Physics.”
By allowing students the freedom to choose their own goals for the project and keeping passionate students on the project as mentors, this tight-knit group gets an experience they would not get in class.
