The Rocket Teams Project is a project based learning (PBL) unit incorporating the study of fundamental physics such as Newton’s Laws of Motion, practical engineering and hands-on builds, the study of science fiction, and documentary filmmaking. It is designed for both middle and high school students.
Below we’ll break down the different components of the project, but if you want to take a peek at what’s under the hood, check out a preview by clicking on the flip book below.
Preview does not include the full curriculum.
Want to get the full project curriculum? Go here.
Components of the Rocket Teams Project
The Rocket Teams Project is comprised of four different components for students to engage in:
- The Study of Modern Physics
- The Engineering Builds
- The Study of Documentary Filmmaking
- The Study of Science Fiction
All four of these components go on simultaneously throughout the project. Students apply their growing knowledge of physics to their engineering builds while also shooting a documentary film about the progress of their team, all the while reading science fiction short stories and comprising analytical essays about their readings.
Studying Modern Physics
The Rocket Teams Project focuses on the study of physics as it relates to the engineering builds each student team will undertake (CO2 Race Cars, Water Bottle Rockets, and Model Rockets). This means certain physics concepts — such as magnetism and electricity — are not covered in this project.
Physics Concepts Covered:
- Newton’s Laws of Motion
- Speed, Velocity & Acceleration
- What is a Force?
- Mass vs Weight
- Form Drag vs Skin Drag
- Principles of Engineering
- Rocket Structure
- Understanding Thrust
- Understanding Roll, Pitch & Yaw
- Kinetic vs Potential Energy
- Center of Gravity vs Center of Pressure
- Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion
Each of these concepts is covered in an easy-to-understand manner. However, we recommend supplementing our own curriculum materials the following textbook: The Cartoon Guide to Physics by Larry Gonick. This book examines most of the concepts above and does an excellent job of breaking those concepts down visually for visual-spatial learners.
The Engineering Builds
As a project based learning unit, the Rocket Teams Project provides three practical hands-on builds that dig deep into the engineering process:
- CO2 Race Cars
- Water Bottle Rockets
- Model Rockets
Student teams will compete with each other in designing and building each machine. Those machines can then be let loose on Launch Days in friendly competitions.
The physics underlying how these machines work are studied alongside build days so that students can apply what they are learning to the builds themselves.
Where to Get Build Materials
For the CO2 Race Cars, we recommend Pitsco. Not only do they have CO2 Race Car kits, but they also have a wide range of additional supplies and educational materials. A standard single-car kit runs about $13 or so.
If you want specialized tracks for the cars to run on, Pitsco has that too. They also have launchers that will pierce the CO2 cartridges to make them launch, but we recommend building your own. Here’s a handy guide for constructing a CO2 car launcher.
For the Water Bottle Rockets, we recommend checking out this guide from the National Physics Laboratory. It goes into deep detail about the construction of Water Bottle Rockets, as well as the underlying physics, and how to build a launcher. We adapted some of this material for our own curriculum.
For parts for the Water Bottle Rocket launcher, we turned to the StratoLauncher. You will need to be sure you have enough nozzles for all your rockets, and you will also need a bike pump to make the rockets launch.
For Model Rockets, we highly recommend Apogee Rockets. Depending upon the experience level of your students, you can go with intro-level rockets or more advanced rockets like their Dynaster Line.
Whatever you go with, be sure to research precisely what you need when buying a launcher.
And if your school is simply not in a position to launch Model Rockets, the Rocket Teams Project can still work just fine with just Water Bottle Rockets. You can simply remove the final build from the project.
Documentary Film
Instead of assessing student learning by way of worksheets and tests as would happen in a normal physics classroom, the Rocket Teams Project shifts the assessment onto the creation of a documentary film. Each team is required to make a documentary movie about the process their team went through at each stage of the project.
The student films can be given a lot of leeway regarding creativity and approach, but fundamentally each film should demonstrate the engineering process the teams went through and the application of physics concepts. It should be a document that shows real learning and how each team overcame various challenges.
Obviously, this approach requires students to devote time to learning about some basics of filmmaking and how to apply them.
In the Rocket Teams Project, we examined a range of short documentary films, explored filmmaking concepts like the Rule of Thirds, undertook storyboarding and the writing of film treatments, and dove into the process of film editing. These lessons are included with the curriculum on TPT.
Short Documentary Films We Watched
- You Will Survive – Directed by Kyle McDougall
- Mile by Mile – Directed by Mark Bone
- Ball People – Directed by Scott Lazer
- The Blacksmith – Directed by Florent Piovesan
For shooting the documentaries, we recommend using iPhones if students have them or purchasing some cheap HD camcorders. You will likely want to purchase sound recording devices that offer quality sound.
We edited film on both Canva.com and with the free version of Davinci Resolve.
If your students want to use voiceovers, we recommend the free AI generated services of ElevenLabs.
Science Fiction
If you’re going to build a project around rocket science, then you definitely ought to be reading science fiction. Throughout the project, students read a variety of sci-fi short stories. Those stories served as the basis of ongoing analytical essays.
Our own essay-writing model is an adaptation of the Lucy Calkins curriculum. However, any approach to essay writing will work well with this project.
In fact, you can easily adapt this portion of the project to the reading of a science fiction novel or a nonfiction book as well (with this project, we recommend the Young Readers Adaptation of American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley). The point is simply to integrate a literary component into the project that relates in some fashion to the ideas and concepts being explored.
Science Fiction Stories We Recommend
- All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
- Time Enough at Last by Lynn Venable
- Third From the Sun by Richard Matheson
- The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke
- Examination Day by Henry Slesar
- And There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
In the curriculum on TPT, we include a step-by-step breakdown of the pre-writing stages for All Summer in a Day: note-taking, initial thoughts and responses, crafting a claim, and finding evidence in the text. We would walk students through these stages as part of the essay writing curriculum so that they have a role model for the process. The actual writing of the essays, however, are of course up to the student.
Team Building
While not a core academic focus, the Rocket Teams Project relies heavily upon team building. Students are divided into teams and will work through the entire project together (essays are written individually). For this reason, we built-in some fundamental team exercises:
- Team Name
- Team Logo
- Team Motto
- Team T-Shirts
- Team Sponsors
- Team Playlist
These exercises helped to build unity and identity for each team.
