*Updated 5/15/2026 to reflect the correct name spelling of Denis Lakovic.
After three semesters of planning and work, School of Manufacturing and Industrial Technology students come to the final preparations for an anticipated sendoff: a rocket launch. The students of the Tool and Die Maker Technology class plan to launch a PVC rocket during the final week of the semester outside Richland Campus.
The rocket’s distance is determined by how much air pressure is set. “Depending upon the rocket length … we could probably launch 200, 250 feet,” says Roderick Crowder, a Richland engineering professor. “They’re building a rocket to hit sort of a target distance. This one’s going to be a little bit more interactive because in addition to the physical rocket there’s also an electronic component,” he said.
The process of getting the rocket set up started off conceptually, but went from sketch drawings to manufacturing for students to work on. Craig Van Hamersveld, Richland precision machining technology professor, said this opportunity allows students to gain workforce experience. “They had to learn how to do some of the machining there, which was pretty cool. This is probably the only class I had where the kids come in early, stay late, come in off days to work on this,” he said.
For student Denis Lakovic, the project was a completely new experience. “The process was interesting because before I started any of this, I didn’t have any idea how to use any of the milling machines or lathes or any of the hand tools,” he said. “As time went on, they slowly started to trust me to make more and more of my own designs and help build this up.”
Lakovic ended up manufacturing most of the parts included in the rocket. “All of these triangles, the handlebar, the side panels, the entire table, that was my design. … Everything above that, the disc and the launcher itself, that was other people’s designs,” he said.
Hamersveld said the experience students get from working on these projects expands into their future work field. “They’re in career development. … I’m here to [give] the knowledge for how to have a career in this industry,” he said.
“A lot of engineers, when they go straight to university and get their bachelors, they have no idea how to use any of these machines,” Lakovic said. “I took a lot away from it that I’m probably going to end up using in the future.”
