Aerospace Engineering: Design, Build, Launch

• Test paper airplanes and wing shapes for flight

• Build a glider and adjust its balance

• Launch water bottle rockets and compare flight predictions

• Explore how satellites and spacecraft stay in orbit

• Pilot mini drones through an obstacle course

• Build a team lander to protect fragile cargo

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain how lift, drag, thrust, and weight affect flight

• Use test results to improve an engineering design

• Compare how gliders, rockets, and drones meet different flight challenges

You’ll leave with your glider and flight-test results, a team Mission Lander design presentation, and a certificate of completion.

A glider’s short flight gives students a problem they can see. Changing its balance or wing shape and testing again helps them connect forces with results. Measuring the difference makes an improvement easier to explain.

Team design challenges also ask students to compare ideas and explain their choices. These habits support science and math projects, where a useful answer depends on what a test shows and how clearly someone can describe it.

For students who have completed 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th grade.

For a child who builds things, follows rocket launches, or wonders how a plane stays up, this course offers hands-on ways to explore. Students use basic math and measurement in team design challenges. No prior engineering or coding experience is needed.

Ann Arbor is a college town where the University of Michigan campus and the surrounding community meet. Tree-lined streets, bookstores, and cafés give the setting a character of its own. Students spend their summer learning on campus with other young people who share their curiosity.

Clear routines and supportive staff help students settle into a new place. There is room to make friends, share interests, and enjoy being part of a group. It is a welcoming way to try a campus summer without needing to have a future major in mind.