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Lessons Learned from Starting a Student-Led Rocket Club and the Collaborative Effort between the Club and a Rocket Course

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

AERO 1: Rocketry and Space Education

Tagged Division

Aerospace Division (AERO)

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43432

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43432

Download Count

177

Paper Authors

biography

Jacob Michael Blocker

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I am currently a senior in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University. I have worked as an intern at NASA KSC for the past 2 summers (2021/2022) for the Launch Services Program verifying contractor launch vehicle engine performance, and will start full-time in summer 2023 as a propulsion engineer at SpaceX. During my time at Iowa State, I have been highly involved with the Cyclone Rocketry team, leading the propulsion team during the 2021-2022 academic year, and serving as the Vice President of the club during the 2022-2023 school year.

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biography

Benjamin Ahn The Ohio State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-3808-0398

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Dr. Benjamin Ahn is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University in the Department of Engineering Education.

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Abstract

As the focus of the aerospace industry shifts toward the space sector, increasing numbers of college students across the country are searching for ways to gain practical, hands-on experience in designing, manufacturing, and testing rockets. Student-led clubs are one way for students to obtain that experience. This paper highlights one engineering club at Iowa State University (a Midwestern university in the U.S.), the Cyclone Rocketry club, and focuses specifically on the club’s propulsion team. The paper presents the propulsion team’s efforts to pioneer new rocket technologies, create several powerful rocket motors, and collaborate with the university’s aerospace engineering faculty to create supplementary teaching materials for a new rocket propulsion course. Furthermore, the paper describes lessons learned and provides recommendations for starting and running a propulsion team in a university setting. The paper benefits college students interested in creating similar student-led rocket clubs in their respective universities and engineering faculty members interested in collaborating with such clubs to introduce real-world problems and demonstrations in their rocketry courses.

Blocker, J. M., & Ahn, B. (2023, June), Lessons Learned from Starting a Student-Led Rocket Club and the Collaborative Effort between the Club and a Rocket Course Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43432

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