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Sebastian Grabowski and a team of aerospace undergrads are taking on their toughest challenge yet: going back to high school.

A sophomore in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the �鶹ӰԺ, Grabowski is an active member of the a student club that boasts more than 250 members.

Their primary focus is designing and building rockets that can soar into the stratosphere, but this semester they stretched their abilities in a new way, building an outreach program to inspire the next generation of budding aerospace engineers.

The team worked with the(ITLP) on campus to develop a multi-week aerospace and rocketry curriculum for students at in Lafayette, Colorado.

“It was really exciting. I love the impact we can make on the students and seeing their eyes light up about the topics we covered,” Grabowski said.

Throughout the month of January, teams of SRL students visited Centaurus 3-4 days each week to lead instruction on propulsion, materials, stability and control. In addition to academic instruction, the high school students worked in pairs to build their own model rocket and compete against peers to see who could notch the highest altitude on launch.

“They had two weeks to build the rocket and all of them worked differently. They had to use CAD software and 3D print or laser cut their own components. They were testing drag caused by the fins and nose cones,” Grabowski said.

Centaurus is an engineering-oriented high school, and students have access to makerspace equipment, like 3D printers, not available to many teens. However, when it came to classroom instruction, they were still a tough audience for SRL.

“You ask a question in class and no one raises their hands,” Grabowski said. “They’re just silent. It took a lot of trial and error, but I have a bunch of rocket explosion videos on my phone and that got people engaged. ‘What went wrong here? This failure was as simple as forgetting to put a screw in one location.’ You start talking about the explosion and you can get in on a foundational level.”

As part of the curriculum, the team hosted an industry panel with invited guests discussing career goals, internships, and how to choose a college.

“We were scheduled to meet with just one class, but a second teacher stopped by and saw what all we had put into the presentation and asked us to talk to their students too,” Grabowski.

When launch day arrived, the 16 teams of Centaurus students were ready with their rockets. For the event, ITLP supplied SRL with a cache of tiny altimeter sensors that would fit on each rocket to measure their maximum elevation.

“A few of the rockets didn’t come back down where they were supposed to, or the parachute didn’t deploy correctly, but that’s part of the design, build, and test process. The highest rockets got up to 200-300 feet in altitude. I really think it was a success,” Grabowski said.