Glendora Unified, Citrus College Students Ready For Rocket Launch

Forty-seven students from the Glendora Unified School District explored the wonders of aerospace engineering at the recent “Focus on Engineering” workshop hosted by students of Citrus College’s STEM Program. The program focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The students from GUSD’s Gifted and Talented Education Program spent the day in a hands-on workshop where they built and launched small Estes rockets. Engineering students from Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Los Angeles also collaborated on the project.

“It was a very successful event, as the elementary and middle school students learned about near space balloons and rockets,” said Citrus College Physics Instructor Lucia Riderer in a statement.

The workshop was sponsored by the Engineering Information Foundation (EIF) and the California Space Grant Consortium.  In the fall of 2012, the California Space Grant Consortium donated a $10,000 NASA grant to Citrus College and Cal Poly Pomona for a collaborative project, the High Altitude Balloon Project (HAB). 

The Citrus College students that participated in the program included members of Citrus College’s Women in Engineering Program, the Rocket Owls, and the students involved in the HAB Project. 

The six-member Rocket Owls will participate in NASA’s University Student Launch Program, a competition in Huntsville, Alabama in April 2013. The students of the HAB Project will launch the rocket they designed and built in February 2013. A foam glider Glendora Unified students designed, built and decorated will also accompany the HAB launch in February.

- Provided by Citrus College