Apr 18, 2012 - Claremont, CA -

If you ever wanted to learn rocket science, you've come to the right place. Students in E80 Experimental Engineering head to the Mojave Desert each spring to fly the rockets they've spent months building and outfitting with on-board measurement equipment. If their rockets survive, they'll be able to analyze and report on the data collected during the flight.

Experimental Engineering (E80) is a sophomore-level, semester-long field laboratory course. Students learn fundamental principles of experimental engineering—including electrical and computer measurement of sensors; flight modeling; design, manufacture, testing and redesign of sensor packages; analyzing and presenting data—while building their own small rocket.

The best part is the field testing—launching those carefully designed and built rockets, seeing what they do and what data they record. Now that's some fun rocket science.