DOFPro
Open educational resources in Chemical and Thermal Processes and High Power Rocketry
The Degrees of Freedom Project (DOFPro) was created to convert previously developed instructional materials that relied on proprietary textbooks, software, and platforms previously developed instructional materials into resources released under Creative Commons licenses and supported by open-source tools.
At present, DOFPro includes two major subject areas:
- Chemical and Thermal Processes (CTP)
- High Power Rocketry (RCK)
Much of the original material was developed for engineering courses at Harvey Mudd College. Links to both the current DOFPro resources and the original course materials are provided below.
Chemical and Thermal Processes (CTP)
You can visit the current Chemical and Thermal Processes website or read a brief introduction to the CTP project here.
Current Website and Videos
The current DOFPro Chemical and Thermal Processes website is:
The full YouTube playlist is:
Source Material Course Links
The following Harvey Mudd Engineering courses provided much of the source material for the DOFPro Chemical and Thermal Processes videos and websites:
- E82, Chemical and Thermal Processes
- E133, Chemical Reaction Engineering
- E134, Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics
- The statistics portions of E80
These original course materials have not been released under Creative Commons and may rely on commercial software for projects and assignments.
High Power Rocketry (RCK)
You can visit the current High Power Rocketry website or read a brief introduction to the rocketry project here.
Current Website and Videos
Development of the DOFPro High Power Rocketry website has been delayed while we focused on the Chemical and Thermal Processes materials. The full RCK release is currently scheduled for December 2026, but you are welcome to explore the work in progress now:
Source Material Course Links
The following Harvey Mudd Engineering courses are being used as source material for the DOFPro High Power Rocketry videos and websites:
Development Tools
We are using open-source tools to the greatest extent possible in the development process. Our primary web-development platform is Quarto.
The major open-source tools currently in use include:
Additional packages may be added over time as the project develops.
About the Name and Logo
A degree of freedom is an independent coordinate, independent variable, or system parameter. To define the state of a system, one must specify values for all of its degrees of freedom.
In chemical engineering, counting the degrees of freedom and the number of independent equations helps determine whether a problem is solvable. For example, if there are three variables and three independent equations, then there are \(3 - 3 = 0\) degrees of freedom, and the system has a determinate solution (possibly with multiple roots). If there are three variables and only two independent equations, then there are \(3 - 2 = 1\) degree of freedom, meaning that one variable remains free to be specified.
In rocketry, the position and orientation of a rocket can also be described in terms of degrees of freedom. Each spatial coordinate (\(x\), \(y\), and \(z\)) contributes one degree of freedom, and each independent angular orientation contributes another.
In both subject areas, identifying the degrees of freedom is a fundamental part of analyzing the system. In addition, because the materials in the project are intended to be open and freely usable, the name also carries the idea of freedom of use.
The logo depicts a rocket flying through a benzene ring—obviously not to scale. The benzene ring is one of the most recognizable symbols in chemical engineering, and the rocket represents the rocketry side of the project.