COOL CLASS: Building your own rocket counts as school work

USING a combination of science and maths, these clever Year 8 Kadina High students have a tough challenge ahead.

HAVING A BLAST: Year 8 Endeavour STEM class students from L-RCooper, Page, Elanor, Ciara and Sam prepare their rockets for a test flight.

THEY'RE clever and have been accepted into a specialist class, but can these Year 8 students actually make their own working rockets?

It's a mission that has been gladly accepted by the Kadina High School STEM class, and now they are in action mode.

They must build their own rocket to safely courier a raw egg from launch to landing.

Science teacher Matt Rolfe said 17 students applied for the specialist class, which they are allowed to take by sustituting one period each of their maths and science classes.

 

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TAKING OFF: Kadina High School year 8 Endeavour STEM student Obi readies the launcher to test the class rockets.

 

"They're still doing their science, they're still doing their maths, and because we expect more from them, they're expected ‒ and they do ‒ complete the same amount of work in one period less a fortnight than the other kids," Mr Rolfe said.

The Endeavour STEM class of 17 students are in the process of designing rockets to enter into the Australian Youth Rocketry Championship.

Here, they must build their own rocket to safely courier a raw egg from launch to landing.

 

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HAVING A BLAST: Year 8 Endeavour STEM class students from L-RCooper, Page, Elanor, Ciara and Sam prepare their rockets for a test flight.

 

"From the science point of view, there's physics involved, there's chemistry with what's going on within the motors," Mr Rolfe said.

"From a maths point of view, we've got to look at the trajectory of the rocket, where the rocket's going to hit apogee and whether or not it's going to pop out at the right time and blow the nose cone at the right time and all those things.

"The trigonometry comes into it, and these guys are in Year 8 and normally they wouldn't be taught this level until Year 10 at least.

"Some of the physics they are doing is Years 11 and 12 level. So, we push them really hard."

With all the problem-solving skills, critical and creative thinking put to the test, these rocket scientists are set to blast well into the future.