Queen's University at Kingston|L’Université Queen’s à Kingston

Purpose

The Q-AISES Rocket Team competes annually in the NASA First Nations Launch (FNL) high powered rocketry competition, hosted by the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC). The team is comprised of Indigenous student members of the Queen's University’s chapter of AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society), which is a broader international organization that encourages and supports Indigenous engagement with study and careers in STEM fields. This team offers an opportunity for Indigenous engineering and science students at Queen's to become involved with a hands-on experiential learning project each year with tangible outcomes. Students come from a collection of programs such as Engineering, Physics, Astrophysics, Computer Science, Health Science, Biology and Concurrent Education. This year, the team will be competing in the Mars challenge in which they will be designing, testing, and fabricating a rocket to reach an altitude of 3200 to 4000 feet above ground level (AGL) and implementing 5 sensors, as determined by the FNL competition handbook, to analyze the flight of the rocket. Throughout the academic year, the team submits a series of presentations and technical engineering reports, which are reviewed by a panel of judges. The team will travel to the Richard Bong State Recreational Area in Kansasville, WI for the competition in April to launch the rocket, attend rocketry workshops, and meet other Indigenous students from universities and tribal colleges with a similar interest in rocketry. Throughout the year, the team will also conduct educational outreach visits with Indigenous and Black youth to promote an interest in rocket science and STEM more broadly. During these outreach visits, the team introduces rocketry through a hands-on experience by launching low-powered model rockets to 500 feet. This outreach also gives youth exposure to proximate-age Indigenous role models who are studying in STEM fields and accomplishing great things through their involvement with NASA's First Nations Launch.