MARION-  On Jan. 6, Sippican School students  in the Into Orbit space club, had the chance to launch homemade bottle rockets thanks to engineers from Lockheed Martin.

The bottle rocket launch was a special opportunity for students thanks to Nate Fowler, mechanical engineer at Lockheed Martin. As part of this multi-week project, he taught students about how bottle rockets work, they got to design their own fins and nosecones, and finally pressurize them using bike pumps. The rockets were launched on homemade launch pads designed by the engineer.

The space club is currently running for the second year in a row. Students in grades 5 and 6 spend 12 weeks learning about robotics and coding, using First Lego League curriculum and EV3 robots, as well as participating in space-themed STEM challenges.

This club was started by Lockheed Martin, and is run by company employee and Tri_STEM non-profit founder Allie Goodman, and Sippican School teachers Chelsey Lawrence (enrichment teacher) and Heather Sullivan (grade 4).

Many Lockheed Martin employees also volunteer their time and talents for an hour and a half each week to coach students. They include Emma Miller (operations engineer), Karissa Magnacca (operations engineer), Tony Yu (mechanical engineer), Charles Christian (electrical engineer), and long-time volunteer Caty Duncan (electrical engineer).