Kyle McLaughlin picks up a silver X-Acto knife. Beneath his hand, small pieces of balsa wood rest on the slanted cardboard box he has placed on the rectangular table in the back of teacher Earl Sharp’s classroom.

Holding the thin blade steady in his hand, the Robidoux Middle School seventh-grader leans forward and scores a small piece of the wood.

“I’m cutting the edges out of the wing,” he says.

Cut pieces and scraps litter the table in front of him. To his side rests the open instructions for the Screaming Eagle rocket that Kyle, 13, is building.

Even NASA scientists and engineers have to build their multi-million dollar rockets from the ground up. And Kyle and several of his peers are creating their own little space agency.

The Robidoux Rocket Club is in session, just as it has been at 3 p.m. every Thursday during the year.

“There’s something magical about seeing a rocket that you built go up,” Mr. Sharp says as he rolls his wheelchair between the two tables of rocket builders.

This is the first time the instructor has had students build rockets at Robidoux.

“I did it before in elementary school,” he says.

There are seven male rocket “engineers” in the club this year, and all are building rockets from kits they and their parents have chosen and purchased. While Kyle’s is the Screaming Eagle, fellow seventh-grader Aaron Drake, 13, is working on the Eggscaliber rocket.

“I’m marking where the fins have to go on the rocket,” Aaron says.

On a nearby table, several finished rockets stand at attention. They will be launched next month, after the boys purchase the engines that will propel their creations into the sky. Launch will be set for a Saturday, Mr. Sharp says. He expects that the club will launch about 15 rockets. A potluck of the boys’ favorite dishes will follow.

While the talk zooms from Mr. Sharp’s corgi to what food would be good for the potluck, Kyle is still focused on the wings of the Screaming Eagle, the third rocket he is building.

With a glance at the instructions, he tips the bottle of wood glue and joins two of the wing pieces. Picking up the pieces on the table, he starts piecing the wing together.

“I can’t put this in,” he says, as Mr. Sharp rolls over to the table. “Unless this is the wrong way.”

“OK, look at the shape...,” Mr. Sharp says.

And two heads lean toward the instructions.

Lifestyles reporter Cathy Woolridge can be reached at cathyw@npgco.com