Rocketry at YC sprang out of a desire to do something that no one else was doing, both from an educational model and from a technical standpoint. We adopted Agile and Scrum from Intel, two project planning methods that serve as the gold standard in the software industry, to help facilitate a self-managed, true to industry, project based engineering course.
Over the course of the year, students in this class will plan, design, present, budget, build and test a rocket from scratch capable of lifting a 1lb payload to a height of 1 mile. During this process they'll learn a little bit about what makes rocket science so hard - the blending of physics, engineering, chemistry and mathematics makes for an incredibly rich learning environment. While there are two facilitators in myself and Mrs. Megan Burnett, students will find that they'll need to creatively solve problems as they arise, and that we may not have all of the answers. They will plan their own timelines and are graded based upon the ability to meet these deadlines, in addition to critiquing their fellow team-mates and class-mates to improve the overall likelihood of success.
Our year 2 and higher students will find themselves not only working on bigger projects, but also serving as frequent mentors and instructors to our first years. This peer tutoring model forces every student to be an active part of the learning process. Over the course of the year, students will also be hosting public launch events on campus, and we highly encourage you to bring along any old models you might have sitting on a shelf, we've probably got a motor and a pad that will get them into the sky!
Over the course of the year, students in this class will plan, design, present, budget, build and test a rocket from scratch capable of lifting a 1lb payload to a height of 1 mile. During this process they'll learn a little bit about what makes rocket science so hard - the blending of physics, engineering, chemistry and mathematics makes for an incredibly rich learning environment. While there are two facilitators in myself and Mrs. Megan Burnett, students will find that they'll need to creatively solve problems as they arise, and that we may not have all of the answers. They will plan their own timelines and are graded based upon the ability to meet these deadlines, in addition to critiquing their fellow team-mates and class-mates to improve the overall likelihood of success.
Our year 2 and higher students will find themselves not only working on bigger projects, but also serving as frequent mentors and instructors to our first years. This peer tutoring model forces every student to be an active part of the learning process. Over the course of the year, students will also be hosting public launch events on campus, and we highly encourage you to bring along any old models you might have sitting on a shelf, we've probably got a motor and a pad that will get them into the sky!