Aerobrakes — Lesson Plans

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18 sessions of ~75 minutes each, built from the Course Overview. Students do independent work between sessions since this project takes second priority to schoolwork, so pacing is intentionally loose rather than calendar-locked. See the Course Overview for target calendar windows per phase.

Onboarding

1. Onboarding

Phase 1 · Simulate

1. RocketPy Fundamentals
2. OpenRocket Benchmark
3. Control Theory Primer
4. Writing RocketPy Plugins
5. Algorithm Implementation — Bang-Bang
6. Algorithm Implementation — PID
7. Algorithm Implementation — Responsive
8. Noisy Data & Edge Cases
9. Comparative Analysis

Phase 2 · Document Phase I

1. Writing the Phase I Report

Phase 3 · Engineer, Build, Test

1. Regulatory & Safety Clearance
2. Flight Computer Familiarization
3. Aerobrake Mechanism Design
4. Porting Control Algorithm to C
5. System Integration
6. Flight Testing

Phase 4 · Document Phase III

1. Final Report & Lessons Learned