Along with the other executives of my club, I hosted a bottle rocket challenge that was affiliated with my school's Astrophysics Club in late June. There is a common misunderstanding that only Astro nerds are able to build rockets for launching. I believe that anyone with the passion to build and design should be strong encouraged to do so because I really value the process of hands-on engagement. To engage students in an active, hands-on launch, my club (Astrophysics club) hosted a school-wide bottle rocket challenge. There is also the misconception of accessibility: often, rocket-building is misconceived as an expensive engagement because there is so much initial investment needed to obtain materials. However, a bottle-rocket challenge can be carried out by using just common materials like plastic bottles and cardboard.

As a means to engage with the design process, we challenged students to design their own bottle rockets with the basic materials provided (one piece of carboard, one 1L bottle, string, and a plastic bag). The goal of the challenge was to design a bottle rocket that would stay in the air for the longest time. To consider environmental constraints (our launch was during the water crisis in Calgary), we chose to launch with air-filled rather than water-filled, rockets. The whole project spanned roughly a month, and more than 30 students were involved in the final launch at the end of June.

The bottle rocket challenge project had not only provided me with invaluable hands-on experience as I engaged myself in the design process, but also gave me organizational experience in hosting large events. During the process of building the base, I came up with many creative ways of testing the PSI limit of a bottle rocket. I took apart and pieced together different parts of different electronics to construct the base (I used parts from my electric car-tire pump, a schrader bicycle valve, parts of a malfunctioning bike pump, and rubber bicycle tires to create a useable bike pump for launching). Overall, the rocket challenge was successful in both student participation levels and overall feedback from students during the day of the event.