The Aerospace & Innovation Academy (AIA) provides unique STEM experiences, opportunities, and after-school programs for motivated middle and high school students and educators. From camps, after-school clubs, tutoring, consulting, and classes, the AIA can help your student stand out on resumes as well as help teachers to excel in the classroom. Many of our former students have gone on to attend prestigious boarding schools out of middle school, have been accepted at high schools of their choice, and many others excel at Science Fair and numerous other competitions. Our students present at conferences, write technical papers, and advocate at our state and national level on behalf of aerospace. Your students can experience these opportunities too!
Both groups meet virtually weekly to allow students from all around the country to be part of the team!
AIA students will participate in trimester SPACE Clubs as the pathway to join the Wolfpack CubeSat Development Team. Students will learn to use the mathematics related to orbital mechanics, spacecraft ascent/descent, and interplanetary travel. Emphasis will be placed on identifying aerospace-themed research topics. Students will work in groups in preparation for various space settlement contests, and engage with aerospace professionals through industrial connections and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Wolfpack members have built three spacecraft (2 CubeSats and 1 hosted payload) which launched in 2018, 2022, and 2023. Wolfpack students have written accepted papers and presented at national and international conferences over 100 times since 2018.
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The 501(c)3 Wolfpack CubeSat Development Team (WCDT) engages and prepares 10-18 year old students to design, build, test, and fly CubeSats in small teams before graduating high school.
Through support from BLUECUBE Aerospace (bluecubesat.com) and the Aerospace and Innovation Academy (AerospaceHigh.org) programs, students participate annually in the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative and conduct high altitude balloon launches.
Wolfpack students write, present, and publish technical papers at national and international conferences, and create and publish children's picture books and activity books on aerospace topics. WCDT's lead mentored the first middle school team, selected by NASA's CSLI, to space in 2018. Wolfpack students participate and lead teams in the annual Florida Space Day in Tallahassee and AIAA Congressional Visits Days in Washington, D.C.
The WCDT employs a "BLUE-SKY Learning" philosophy, and embraces a "Techies and Talkies" approach for engagement. Wolfpack students work well in teams, mentor younger students, and are confident and practiced communicators. The Wolfpack best positions students to remain in the STEM pipeline through their college years. Several recent Wolfpack student presentations may be viewed on their AIA YouTube channel or learn more from the AIA's "Let's Go To Space: BLUE-SKY Learning" podcast.
Sign up for Camps, SPACE Club, or the Wolfpack here:
The Wolfpack Orbital Launch Fund & Competition - The 'WOLF-C'
The Wolfpack is launching a nationwide CubeSat flight opportunity for secondary students. Despite the CubeSat revolution in our New Space Economy, high costs to space access and a lack of training impede maximum use of this disruptive form factor in the STEM pipeline. The WOLF-C addresses these issues.
Manufacturing and launch costs prevent nearly all capable middle and high school students from doing so. Most efforts to lower barrier to access focus on university teams. Second, secondary schools don't have suitable access for instructor training.
The WOLF-C is a competitive grant system specifically targeted towards secondary education to lower cost and knowledge barriers. Join us at the SmallSat Education Conference (29-30 Oct) for the official launch of the WOLF-C.
This year, the third annual SSEC at Kennedy Space Center was the largest to date! This year SSEC saw over 540 registered attendees, 36 presenters, 6 workshops, and 30 vendors come together to promote the use of HABs, ThinSats, CubeSats, and PocketQubes to pre-college students and educators. The keynote speaker was Kenneth S. Reightler, former astronaut and U.S. Naval Academy professor.
The SSEC organizers (K Simmons and K Johnson) wanted to say a special thank you to the parents and Wolfpack students (Alex C, Gabe M, Michael M, etc.) who volunteered at the AMF's Center for Space Education Building - your support made this a really special weekend. Special shout out to new Wolfpack members who presented for the first time: Lucas L, Teddy S, Finn B, Ryan H, and Shiv P. Of course we are also proud of our other outstanding presenters as well including Jasmin C, Paul K, Sofia K, Santi G, Brian W, Sean W, and Daniel PL. Having our meeting within the KSC Visitor Complex also allowed us to view a Falcon-9 launch on Saturday evening.
We announced we are creating a $5000 educator award for CubeSat-related curriculum which we will award next year, along with the Goddard100 art, writing and engineering student contests which we'll announce on 1 December at Goddard100.org. Our 4th annual SSEC will occur on 25-26 October at KSC's AMF with keynote Dr. Norman Fitz-Coy.