Development of the Class

The NYA rocket class was developed over several weeks from December 2010-February 2011 by Randy Hirt (Neighborhood Youth Association), David Jackson (Aerospace Corporation), Sam Koshy (Graduate Student/JPL), and Yoni Malchi (Aerospace Corporation).  It is a sixteen week introduction to rockets using hands-on projects and demonstrations for a group of six 9th grade student leaders at the Neighborhood Youth Association (NYA) in Venice Beach.  Each class is an hour long and is designed to give the students an understanding of how rockets work, why they are important, and how careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) can be interesting and fun!  A goal of the class is to prepare these students for the Team America Rocket Challenge (TARC) and enter a team next year.