Connect With Us

Inside INdiana Business
Subscribe Now Log In
  • Home
  • News
    • Education
    • Health
    • Tech
    • STEM
    • Advanced Manufacturing & Logistics
    • Life Sciences
    • Ag INnovation
    • INPower
  • Videos
  • Big Wigs
    • Submit Big Wigs
  • Events
    • Engage Southwest Indiana – Evansville
    • Engage Northwest Indiana – Valparaiso
    • Engage Greater Lafayette – West Lafayette
    • Engage West Central Indiana – Terre Haute
    • Engage South Bend – Elkhart
    • Engage Northeast Indiana – Fort Wayne
    • Engage Central Indiana – Indianapolis
  • Newsletters
  • Podcasts
  • On-Air
    • TV & Radio Listings
  • Contact
    • About IIB
    • Meet the Team
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Gift Cards
    • Flagship Stations
    • Gerry’s Message
    • Speaking Engagement Request

Connect With Us

Launchboxes Let Students Shoot Homework Into Space

Thursday, August 9, 2018 10:57 AM EDT Updated: Friday, August 10, 2018 10:08 AM EDT
By Reed Parker, Writer/Reporter
Launchboxes Let Students Shoot Homework Into Space

Purdue’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics has made Launchboxes available to schools for students to conduct space experiments. The small aluminum boxes have already proven successful in a zero-gravity experiment.

Professor Steven Collicott recently finished a two-year project with Cumberland Elementary School second-graders in West Lafayette, in which they used the Launchboxes to send fireflies into space via a Blue Origin rocket. Collicott says the 8×4 boxes were found to be inexpensive enough to be given away to schools, and also that they can be launched into space at a height of 60 miles in the air by the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, much higher than aircraft or balloons. 

“That flight opportunity is now available to schools all over the world at roughly half the cost of high school football uniforms,” Collicott said. “Any school district in the country that plays football can now afford space flight."

The boxes are strong enough to support 15 pounds and allow schools to work within the 1-pound payload limit. Collicott says some of the boxes have already been sent to schools. 

“Teachers should be thinking and working with students about what’s going inside the box and the purpose of their experiment, not how to house it on the rocket." "These Purdue School Launchboxes enable more schools to fly their own original experiments to space by taking this mundane, low-tech stumbling block out of the way for teachers.”

Interested schools can contact Collicott by clicking here. 

You can view more about the Launchboxes in the video below:

Story Continues Below

Most Popular Stories

  • CenterPoint seeks increase to base rates

  • Rezoning request for Love’s Travel Stop in Vanderburgh County denied

  • Q&A with IU South Bend Associate Dean of Nursing Barbara White

  • Manchester University to freeze tuition

  • Elevance CEO among ‘World’s Most Powerful Women’

  • Indiana paint company acquired

Perspectives

More than ever, we need strong, diverse community financial institutions

More than ever, we need strong, diverse community financial institutions

For almost a century, credit unions have been an integral part of the American financial landscape. During the Great Depression, as the U.S. financial system was faltering, people came together around the concept of cooperative community finance as an alternative solution. What resulted was an entirely different approach to consumer and business banking that operates in peaceful parallel with conventional banks of all sizes....

Inside INdiana Business

Inside INdiana Business
A division of IBJ Media

1 Monument Circle, Suite 300
Indianapolis, IN 46204

PHONE: (317) 634-6200

FAX: (317) 263-5060

NEWSLETTER@IIBNEWS.COM

  • Home
  • News
  • Videos
  • Gerry Dick
  • Newsletters
  • On-Air
  • Contact

Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy | Terms of Service