UCLA Broadcast Studio

Using project-based learning, creativity and 3D-printed rocket kits, the students who make up the Rocket Project at UCLA have become science and engineering ambassadors.

The UCLA undergraduates have recently started to share their love of science, engineering and rockets to inspire schoolchildren through visits to Los Angeles-area schools. Their first two outreach events were held at Scott Avenue Elementary School and Marina Del Rey Middle School, where they worked to show students that engineering and problem-solving is exciting by teaching them some basic principles of flight and aerodynamics using model rockets, which are 3-D printed at the UCLA Lux Lab.

Members of the Rocket Project, which has about 120 members from various majors across campus, also test their skills each year at the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition, during which each team must launch and successfully recover a rocket payload to either 10,000 or 25,000 ft. The team recently test launched their Odyssey 1 rocket in a remote part of the Mojave Desert achieving a measured altitude of 12,550 feet, the highest altitude ever for an entirely student-built liquid rocket, according to the team.