Aerospace Engineering for Kids

Explore how forces push and pull a paper plane, including magnitude and direction. Identify the four opposing forces: thrust, lift, drag, and weight, and which push a plane forward.

Explore how engine thrust propels a plane, lift from wing shape keeps it aloft, and weight and drag pull it down.

Explore the fuselage, where passengers sit, the nose cone that reduces drag, wings with flaps that generate lift, engines that push air forward, and ailerons controlled by the pilot.

The Wright brothers pursued flight in Dayton, Ohio, and began experiments in 1899. They built the Wright Flyer with a gasoline engine and achieved a 12-second flight in 1903.

Discover how to balance a homemade airplane by applying the engineering design process: locate its center of gravity with a finger, adjust weight with clay, and test a flight.

Think like engineers to decide what to make and why. Brainstorm materials for a crafted airplane, weighing cardboard versus wood, then sketch a design that resembles a real airplane.

Explore how a straw rocket flies and how rockets compare to airplanes, revealing how weight and fuel enable rapid, far travel into space.

Discover how rockets rise by generating thrust from fuel, engine, and fins to overcome gravity and weight, mirroring balloon experiments that push air for motion.

Design rockets tall and skinny to fly faster and use less fuel. Explore the nose cone, fuselage, and fins, and how drag force and the engine lift the rocket.

Explore the history of rockets from ancient China's bamboo gunpowder devices to spaceflight, highlighting Tsiolkovsky's space ideas, Goddard's liquid-fuel rocket, and the Sputnik launch.

Explore the engineering design process by asking what to make and why, build a straw and paper rocket, and use air for thrust like a balloon, with a design sketch.

Participate in the practical workshop for aerospace engineering for kids, with oo and doo sounds.

Test your homemade rocket to measure thrust and flight. Adjust power until it escapes and flies, then enhance and customize the design with colors and decorations.

Explore how a rocket launch works by examining vertical forces that push a rocket up and then down.

Explore how gravity turn and jet propulsion steer rockets to save fuel and minimize aerodynamic drag, with lift off, tilting, and fuel combustion powering thrust.

Explore the engineering design process by defining a rocket project, brainstorming propulsion ideas, sketching a design, and building a vinegar and baking soda chemical reaction thrust experiment.

Participate in a practical workshop in aerospace engineering for kids, designed to provide an engaging introduction to the field.

Explore how parachutes reduce gravity's impact by increasing air resistance. Through simple experiments with feathers, stones, bottles, and crumbled versus flat paper, learn fall speed control.

Explore how parachutes use air and drag to slow a fall: opening behind you creates a large surface area that traps air, generating drag and counteracting gravity.

Apply the engineering design process by thinking like engineers, asking what we want to make and why, then brainstorm a flat, round, light parachute to safely slow a soldier’s fall.

Test your parachute in an open space with it full of air, comparing which of the two soldiers lands first. Then decorate and enhance your project with different objects.

Explore the advantages of helicopters in aerospace engineering for kids, introducing helicopter concepts and their role in flight.

Explore how helicopter blades generate lift with an airfoil cross section that speeds air over the top, lowering pressure, and learn about the cockpit, main rotor, and tail rotor.

Trace the history of helicopters from da Vinci's 14th-century sketches and 1843 steam-powered attempts to 19th-century engine improvements, culminating in Germany's 1930s first successful models.

Engage in the engineering design process by asking what to make and why, then brainstorm, sketch a design, select materials, and build a helicopter with angled blades to lift.

Participate in a practical workshop in aerospace engineering for kids, designed to introduce young learners to aerospace concepts through a hands-on, engaging format.

Explore the engineering design process by building a toy helicopter with blades, body, and fins, then power it to observe rotation and plan an enhancement at home.