Reactivity Rocket Project

Year 10 Chemistry · 4 weeks · NSW Stage 5 Science

Author

Philip Haynes

Published

May 8, 2026

Leap71 Insanity* aerospike — 3D-printed monolithic copper.* Image © Leap71 · used here for educational reference

Project package

Year 10 students learn the four reaction types of the NSW Stage 5 Chemical World strand — synthesis, decomposition, displacement, neutralisation — together with rates of reaction, by designing a small copper combustion chamber for an ethanol or LPG rocket engine. The actual pressurised burn is fabricated and tested off-site by a licensed vendor; students observe by video at a safe distance only.

The hard safety rule: Anything combining heat and pressure is done by a licensed professional firm. Students never share a postcode with pressurised combustion.

This site is the working documentation set. Everything here is in DRAFT.

Read in this order

  1. Program Overview — phase architecture and why
  2. Interface Control Document — contracts between teams
  3. Safety Case — risk register + SOPs (needs HoD + WHS sign-off)
  4. Phase Transition Gate — vendor handover gate (YAML)
  5. Computational Engineering Static Test — interactive 3D viewer + digital twin
  6. Lab Report Scaffold — the report structure students follow four times
  7. Syllabus Mapping — NSW Stage 5 outcome traceability

Team charters

Each team has its own charter with mission, roles, deliverables, syllabus dot points owned, weekly milestones, and cross-team interfaces.

Lesson packs

Lessons follow the eduKG prototype-v2 lesson-pack format. Each pack has: lesson.yaml, pre-reading/, activities/, assessment/, ai-tutor/, slides/, teacher/.

Phase architecture at a glance

Phase 0  ┃ FOUNDATION                           [School · W1]
Phase 1  ┃ LAB CHEMISTRY + PLASTIC FORM STUDY   [School · W2-3]
Phase 2  ┃ DIGITAL TWIN + VENDOR PROCUREMENT    [School + RFQ · W3-4]
Phase 3  ┃ OFF-SITE COPPER-ENGINE BURN          [Vendor · Post-W4]
Phase 4  ┃ RECONCILIATION + REPORTING           [School · W4]

Two construction options on the same chamber

The Manufacturing team chooses between two construction approaches based on vendor quotes:

  • Option H — Monolithic 3D-printed copper (Leap71 pattern)
  • Option L — Laminated 2D+1 copper stack, vendor-brazed (1940s cavity-magnetron pattern)

Both are vendor-built, both are copper for fail-soft reasoning, both are within the safety case. See the interactive 3D viewer to toggle between them.

At a glance — what this program is

Year level 10 (NSW Stage 5)
Duration 4 weeks, 12 lessons
Class size 31 students, 5 teams (~6 each)
At-school test Atmospheric LPG flame demo on plastic Trotec form study
Final test Off-site vendor-fired copper chamber, video observation only
Hard budget ~$40 (atmospheric demo brass fittings)
Variable budget ~$80–800 (vendor copper chamber, quote-driven)
Primary safety boundary No heat + pressure at school, ever

Status

All documents in this set are in DRAFT (v0.3). The full program runs after:

  • Vendor selected by Manufacturing team in W4
  • Parent communication of the video-only observation model
  • Phase Transition Gate satisfied — see phase-transition-gate.yaml

Version history

  • v0.3 (2026-05-12) — Chemistry refocus. H₂O₂ + KMnO₄ becomes the headline rates lab (three calibration curves: [H₂O₂], [KMnO₄], T). 35% H₂O₂ re-introduced as a teacher-controlled demonstration — students measure at 3% and 6%, extrapolate, then reconcile against the teacher’s 35% measurement. Add ethanol + methane calorimetry (chemical power output vs flow rate). Mg + HCl reduced to a 10-minute pop-test demonstration (qualitative H₂ identification only). Add interactive stoichiometric panel on the comp-eng page answering: can 35% H₂O₂ at school-scale flow supply the O₂ for a 0.5 g/min ethanol burn? (Yes — ~5.6 mL/min H₂O₂ would suffice.) Rust crate gains o2_volume_per_ml_of_h2o2, o2_demand_for_ethanol, stoichiometric_check, arrhenius_extrapolate (now 13 tests).
  • v0.2 (2026-05-08) — Pivot to vendor-built copper chamber. Hard rule: no heat + pressure at school. Drop electrolysis, H₂ as fuel, 35% H₂O₂, bolted steel laminate. Add LPG + ethanol propellants, O₂ enrichment, monolithic + laminated construction options.
  • v0.1 (2026-05-08) — Initial draft, bolted steel laminate at school with methane combustion.