A presentation introducing space rockets, followed by an activity to design and build paper/card rockets.
The finale to this workshop is the testing using a compressed air launcher to send their designs 5-10m in the air (dependant on wind conditions and space available).
To discuss or book this or any of our other workshops, please contact Tally Roberts
We provide a delivery officer with a PowerPoint presentation, videos, and the launcher.
We shall need access to a large presentation screen or projector for our PowerPoint. This includes videos, so speakers are recommended, but not necessary.
Students will need access to crafting materials and tools.
The interactive presentation and rocket building can be done in a classroom, but the launcher requires a large outdoor area.
If the weather or launch location is not suitable to operate the launcher safely, we will need a large indoor area where we can manually throw the rockets without risk of injury or damage (for example, a hall or gym).
This workshop is 90-120 minutes in length. We've designed it so the students can have a break before the launch event whilst our delivery officer sets up and tests it.
We vary the content depending on the age of our audience.
For years 4-6 (ages 8-11), we look at the basics of what rockets need to be successful. At KS3 (ages 11-14) we include the basic forces at play with launching rockets. For GCSE (11-14) we tune the talk to the WJEC physics curriculum on rockets.
This works well as a stand-alone workshop or as part of a series.
If you are putting together a series, our recommendations are to consider the following workshops:
We also provide free teaching resources, including a planetary fact-file, through our TES shop.
We can give the presentation over Teams to a class or group. We can also support teachers/group leaders, in organising the crafting and testing of the rockets (which will be done by hand instead of with our compressed air launcher).
Instead of launching rockets, we can instead look at landing capsules safely on planets.
This changes the focus to the forces involved in landing equipment and people safely on planets. The rocket building is replaced by trying to construct landing devices that can protect the contents of a vessel.