How to Build a Rocket

Name: How to Build a Rocket
Rating: 3.2 (19 reviews)

A Guide with Activities in Rocket Science

Created byGilad James, PhD

Last updated 3/2020

English

What you'll learn

Students will be able to build several types of rockets.
Students will learn how rockets work.

Course content

3 sections • 35 lectures • 2h 21m total length

Brief History of Rockets - Part 110:00
Brief History of Rockets - Part 210:57
Trace the origins of modern rocketry from Tsiolkovsky's liquid-propellant ideas to Goddard's first flight, the V-2 era, Sputnik, and the NASA era of space exploration.
Brief History of Rockets - Part 38:25
Trace the rapid rise of space exploration through moon programs, early unmanned probes, and Gemini milestones, highlighting rockets like Atlas, Redstone, and Titan II, and orbital rendezvous and extravehicular activity.
Course Engagement1:52
Join a lively host as he promotes the course, highlighting occult topics, psychic skills, wormhole physics, and related Udemy courses with coupon codes.
Brief History of Rockets - Part 47:43
Trace the evolution of rockets from early launch devices to the Saturn V and Space Shuttle, tracing Apollo lunar missions, satellite launches, and push for reusable, cost-effective space access.

Rocket Principles - Part 110:15
Explore how thrust from burning propellants unbalances forces to propel rockets, and examine Newton's laws of motion to explain rest, motion, and orbital dynamics.
Rocket Principles - Part 29:59
Explore how rockets use Newton's third law to generate thrust, overcome weight, and accelerate faster as propellant burns, with reduced drag in space enabling orbital and escape speeds.
Practical Rocketry - Part 18:30
From the fire-arrows to modern rockets, it explains solid and liquid propellants, fuel and oxidizer, ignition methods, hollow-core burning, and nozzle design that maximize thrust.
Practical Rocketry - Part 210:05
Explore regenerative cooling in liquid rocket engines, weight management, and thrust control strategies, then learn how center of mass and pitch and yaw axes govern rocket stability and control systems.
Practical Rocketry - Part 39:01
Explore how center of mass and center of pressure affect rocket stability, and how passive and active controls, including fins, canards, tilting vanes, and gimbaled nozzles, steer flight.
Practical Rocketry - Part 44:03
Analyze how rocket mass and mass fraction determine performance, with 91 percent propellants, 3 percent tanks and 6 percent payload, and how staging enables higher altitudes.
Launch Vehicle Family Album10:18
Explore NASA launch vehicles in a historical 'family album' showing rockets for satellites, humans, and future concepts, tracing nearly four decades of space transportation.

Pop Can Hero Engine10:43
Explore how water flow powers a soda can hero engine to spin, illustrating Newton's third law. Experiment with hole sizes and predict results, then collect data.
Pop Can Hero Engine Student Sheet 1
Pop Can Hero Engine Student Sheet 2
Rocket Racer6:20
Build a balloon-powered rocket racer, test it on a 10-meter track, and modify designs to improve distance while exploring Newton's third law.
How To Build A Rocket Racer
Wheel Patterns
Rocket Racer Test Report
Rocket Racer Data Sheet
3-2-1 Pop!4:18
Explore how rocket liftoff demonstrates Newton's laws of motion, powered by the pressure from a reacting effervescing antacid tablet and water in a paper rocket.
How to Build the Rocket
Student Test Sheet
Antacid Tablet Race4:06
Investigate how surface area and temperature affect the reaction rate of antacid tablets to model rocket fuel efficiency and thrust, including crushing and warm water to speed reactions.
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Paper Rockets5:51
Design, construct, and fly paper rockets to travel the greatest distance across a floor model of the solar system. Record launch data and compare predicted versus actual results.
Planet Targets
How to Build Paper Rockets
Paper Rocket Test Report
Newton Car7:36
Explore how increasing mass on a Newton car affects acceleration on a track, illustrating Newton's second law through a slingshot launcher, variable control, and data plotting.
How to Build a Newton Car
Newton Car Report
Newton Car Test Results
Bonus Lecture1:46

Requirements

Come with an open mind.

Description

Rockets are the oldest form of self-contained vehicles in existence. Early rockets were in use more than two thousand years ago.

Over a long and exciting history, rockets have evolved from simple tubes filled with black powder into mighty vehicles capable of launching a spacecraft out into the galaxy. Few experiences can compare with the excitement and thrill of watching a rocket-powered vehicle, such as the Space Shuttle, thunder into space.

Dreams of rocket flight to distant worlds fire the imagination of both children and adults. With some simple and inexpensive materials, you can mount an exciting and productive unit about rockets for children that incorporates science, mathematics, and technology education.

The activities contained in this teaching guide emphasize hands-on involvement, prediction, data collection and interpretation, teamwork, and problem solving.

Furthermore, the guide contains background information about the history of rockets and basic rocket science to make you or your students rocket scientists!

If want to reach for the stars and beyond then a rocket is something you need to relay on. Make sure your rocket is efficient and works properly and can even carry you long distances and this course is a way to learn it from the start.

Who this course is for:

Anyone interested in rockets.
Anyone who wants to build a rocket.

How to Build a Rocket

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Brief History of Rockets5 lectures • 39min