On Sept. 9, about 130 students in EMS teacher Bryan Bagdol’s woodworking and engineering classes stepped outside the classroom for a rapid design-and-build challenge with Durango School District’s Ignite Mobile Learning Lab.
Students designed and built paper-tube rockets, then launched them using compressed air. After each launch, students marked where their rockets landed, considered what worked and what didn’t, modified their designs, and tried again.
“We used this lesson to highlight the value of the iterative design process: learning to prototype, test, reflect and revise,” said Jordan Englehart, Ignite bus facilitator and Durango High School engineering teacher.
Englehart brought an air compressor and launch devices he had previously built so students could immediately put their ideas to the test. Flags marking the landing spots gave students a visual way to measure whether changes to their designs were improving performance.
The project-based learning challenge was intentionally fast-paced. Instead of working toward one predetermined “right” design, students had to respond to what happened with each launch.
“This was about being presented with a challenge or a problem, and students quickly designing and prototyping multiple iterations to solve this problem,” said Bagdol. “Students gained experience in using the design cycle and persevering through restraints to achieve a goal.”
The activity is only the beginning of a larger engineering journey for the students.
Next, they will design and build custom model rockets powered by Estes engines, applying what they learned from the air-pressure challenge to a more complex project. On Sept. 22, students will visit Agile Space Industries in Durango, where Bagdol will invite professional engineers to provide feedback on students’ rocket designs.
From there, students will travel to Dancing Spirit Community Arts Center in Ignacio to experience the Space Cowboy Colorado exhibition, a statewide project exploring the connection between Colorado’s frontier identity and its growing aerospace future.
The work also connects with Bagdol’s students’ participation in NASA TechRise, a national challenge that gives students opportunities to design experiments for real-world flight environments.
For Bagdol, those connections are part of the point. A paper rocket launched outside a middle school classroom can be the first step in understanding how engineers approach much bigger problems: Build something, test it, learn from the result, and try again.
The Sept. 9 challenge also offered students an early look at what the Ignite bus can bring to classrooms across the district. The outdoor, project-based learning experience reached approximately 130 students throughout the day.
And while distance mattered, the winning rocket wasn't necessarily the most important result. Every launch gave students another piece of information they could use to make the next one better.
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School Storytellers: Shout out to Jordan Englehart, Bryan Bagdol, and Dr. Karen Cheser for contributing content for this story.