So how exactly does the program work? Is this a curriculum designed for everyone in a grade level or a particular class or is it available only for those that are interested?
The IGNITE curriculum is intended (by which I mean, it was written so that it satisfies the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) requirements for an upper level physics or engineering/technology course) as a high school course. Most schools would implement it as a one or two-year course (it has options for both) in the junior or senior year of high school.
I can't tell you how anyone else selects the students - some have it as an elective, some have it as part of a predetermined academy curriculum... the high school where I teach is looking at it as one of two courses offered to juniors in our Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) Academy that just got started this year with the freshman class... so it'd be a couple of years before it's regularly offered.
And how much experience do these kids have with low power rockets in the class before they are asked to design a big rocket?
The first year curriculum begins the kids making small A & B powered rockets, learning the basics and how to apply the physics of powered flight to a practical application like a rocket. As they gain experience, they construct larger rockets, some carrying a payload, etc. By the second semester, the kids should be working on a rocket that's capable of carrying one pound to one mile. In the past, the BATFE APCP regulations have made it so that the curriculum used hybrids, since they weren't regulated. Don't know if the curriculum or any of the schools are switching to APCP (which would be my choice since it increases the likelyhood of a successful flight the first time). The culmination of the school year is when all of the schools are invited to Fredricksburg to a launch day activity to fly their rockets.
There is an option for a second year of the curriculum... Fredricksburg HS traditionally works on a larger research rocket that they fly out at White Sands Missile Range. Don't know if any of the other adopters are also working on such a project.
While I suppose that you might consider doing some of the curriculum as an extracurricular activity, everyone I know of is doing it as a curricular or co-curricular class (meaning that it either is done completely in the classroom, or that components of it may be done outside of the classroom, like TARC or SLI or Rockets in Schools along with the classroom component).
It looks like kids are grouped in teams as in TARC but is the mentor a teacher in a class? A person with some high power experience? An volunteer parent? I'm trying to get a feel for the level of teaching/mentoring going on.
I know that at Coppell High School (in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex), it's taught by an instructor, assisted by experienced parents who are very experienced in HP rocketry. Our plan is for me (NAR L2) to teach, and most likely have some help with the folks who now mentor my TARC and SLI teams. Again, can't tell you what everyone else is doing.
The kid (assumed) in the original post doesn't really seem like he has much direction. But he still has the brains to track down someone in rocketry in his state and ask a question. But why isn't he asking questions of his teacher/mentor if he has no clue how to start?
I would make no assumptions about how the class was presented by the questions that person asked... sometimes kids say and do the exact opposite of what they should be doing. I know that the program offers support to all of the schools, but that experience levels of teachers vary greatly. I did observe part of the weeklong teacher training summer before last and was very impressed with the curricular material being presented, which is why I'm such a proponent for it to be taught in our school district.
The
IGNITE program's website has a lot of information about the curriculum, including a
list of the schools involved with the program, and lots of
photos and videos of the annual launch day activity that they host in Fredricksburg each year.