Rick Schertle
Rick is in his 30th year teaching pubic school in San Jose, CA. He is in his eighth year as the Maker Lab teacher at a new K-8 STEAM School in his district. He’s the founder and director of the Washington Maker Workshop, a non-profit maker space in the low-income neighborhood of San Jose. He’s a contributing writer for MAKE Magazine and designed the compressed air rocket for MAKE 15 and the folding-wing glider in MAKE 31. With his wife and kids, he loves all things that fly.
Rick can be found on twitter @AirRocketWorks
Keith Violette
Keith is a mechanical design engineer with 20 years of experience designing robotic prosthetic arms (LUKE arm pictured above), medical devices, and ultra-precision air bearings, and lives in New Hampshire. He has built several CNC machines and 3D printers, and founded a local CNC group. Keith is also a contributing writer for MAKE Magazine, and designed the Air Rocket Glider in MAKE #39, and helped redesign the CAR v2.0, v2.1 & new v2.2. He is also the lucky husband of a creative and understanding wife (Tanya) and father of two maker kids, Lauren & Sean.
Keith can be found on twitter @AirRocketGlider
Keith's website can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/keithviolettesprojects/home
Tanya Violette
Tanya is the backbone of ARW, quickly responding to customer emails, getting orders shipped quickly and keeps everything running smoothly.
Tanya has worked at a local school as a paraeducator, and greatly enjoys working with children.
Tanya also is an accomplished maker in her own right, and is working to start her own organic soap making business with designs and formulations that she has devised. Website and online store coming soon!
Tanya can be found on twitter
How Air Rocket Works Started
Rick first designed an Air Rocket Launcher for Make: Magazine in 2008. He then published an article in 2012 about a Folding Wing Glider that was seen and built by Keith & Tanya's son Sean. Soon after, Keith reached out to Rick, and online to brainstorm some new prototypes. Soon after, Air Rocket Works was born as a small two family company run from California and New Hampshire. We grew even more after a successful Kickstarter campaign (link) in 2014 (CAR v2.0 prototype pictured left) and nation-wide order to 450 Barnes & Noble stores in 2016. While our focus is heavy-duty launchers for consumers, we’ve also designed and built high-end systems for both NASA and ULA’s educational outreach divisions. We continue to grow and innovate, sharing our love for rocketry with every customer, engineer, hobbyist, student or future astronaut.