Seminar gives first-year students taste of rocket science

University Park, Pa. -- It's not easy to lure students out of bed on a Saturday morning, but the chance to see a rocket launch was enough to get a class of 20 outside on a cloudy December day. The launch was a culmination of a new first-year seminar, EE 10S: "This Is Rocket Science."

This fall, student teams began constructing small payloads designed to launch eggs aboard a rocket and safely return them to the ground.

"The point of the class is to expose them to space systems and the (Student Space Programs) Lab," said Sven Bilen, associate professor of engineering design and electrical engineering, who co-teaches the course with Timothy Wheeler, research assistant in electrical engineering, and Julio Urbina, assistant professor of electrical engineering.
Matt Jenkins, a first-year student from Downingtown, said, "We're trying to successfully send up a payload with an egg in it and return it safely uncracked."

In many respects, the endeavor is similar to the "egg drop" contests held in middle schools and high schools. The Penn State students had some additional constraints, however. Because the payloads would be stuffed inside a rocket, the engineers had to make provisions for the volume, weight and diameter restrictions within the rocket.

The teams' payloads were limited to a total of two-and-a-half inches in height and a diameter about the size of a softball. Bilen explained the students could design their payloads around their choice of "passengers" -- grade A medium or large eggs.

Bilen said the larger eggs were worth more points (if returned safely), so students had to decide between using the available space to earn more points or add more padding to ensure safety.

"We wanted to fit more eggs in with more padding, but we could only fit one egg in with more padding," recalled Tess Earley, another first-year student from Downingtown and Jenkins' teammate, about the dilemma they faced.

Jenkins and Earley's design used a hollowed-out foam football with a parachute fashioned from a recycled plastic bag. The two reinforced their payload with some cotton balls and duct tape.

To test their design, Jenkins said, "We went up a flight of stairs and threw it down to make sure the parachute would work as it should."

Still, Jenkins and Earley were at least a bit nervous, as the rocket's estimated altitude of 1,200 to 1,600 feet would far exceed the seven flights of stairs used for their original payload test.

With temperatures in the mid-30s and snow still blanketing parts of Haugh Tract near Circleville Park, the budding rocket scientists converged to see whether their payloads would return to earth as eggs or omelets.

Each project was loaded aboard a red and black rocket that was originally constructed to launch student CanSat projects. Measuring nine feet high, the missile was powered by five solid rocket engines.

Jon Cumblad, a fifth-year civil engineering student who prepped the rocket, said every aspect of the machine was built by students, including the aluminum launching pad used to hold the day's experiment.

With the eggs safely loaded on board the missile, the students backed away to create a 200-foot safety perimeter. Then they began counting down.

10 … 9 … 8 … 7 … 6 … 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 ... and …

Nothing.

The rocket remained on its launch pad. After waiting 60 seconds to make sure the motors would not accidentally ignite, Cumblad and another student went to the pad to troubleshoot.

A second attempt also stalled on the pad, but the third try proved to be a charm.

With a quick "whoosh" and a plume of white smoke, the rocket vaulted into the air, its trajectory arcing slightly.

Its return wasn't as picture perfect as its launch, however. Although the rocket was designed to separate into three pieces -- each with its own parachute -- its nose cone stuck stubbornly to the body, tumbling slowly toward the ground.

Caught in the gentle early afternoon breeze, the missile's pieces drifted away from the launch pad, across a cornfield and toward the woods. Chasing after the rocket, the students recovered the payload at the edge of the field -- each oval passenger having successfully survived the trip.

Other parts of the rocket weren't as fortunate. One or more of the fins had broken off and, worse yet, part of the body along with its parachute were ensnared at the top of two trees, approximately a 100 feet from the ground.

Although the day provided mixed success for the students, Bilen said the course's real objective is to get students interested in space and involved in the college's other space-related programs.

He said the idea for the course came from CanSat students who lobbied for a way to recruit new members to the space competition and to the lab. Sponsored by the American Astronautical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the National Space Grant Consortia and the Universities Space Research Association, the national CanSat contest is designed to provide students with a hands-on space program at an affordable cost.

Bilen hopes students from the class will form the nucleus of the 2008 team.

Though it wasn’t clear how many of the course's students would be a part of CanSat, many of them have already set their sights on becoming true rocket scientists, including Jenkins and Earley.

As for the parts of the rocket still trapped in the trees, Brian Schratz, an electrical engineering graduate student and student programs manager for the Student Space Programs Laboratory, said, "We'll get it back -- eventually."