Prepping the rocket for flight
My freshman year at Tufts was the inaugural year of the Tufts Rocketry team, so we had to start from scratch. I led a team to get members certified with the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), which would allow us to fly more complex rockets in the future. To get certified, we had to successfully fly and recover a high powered rocket.
Nobody had experience with high powered rocketry, so we started by building kit rockets. My team and I assembled the rocket and ran simulations with different motors to choose a rocket motor that would be ideal for the flight.
In April 2019, I had a successful flight and became the first member of Tufts Rocketry to become certified with the NAR. The rocket reached an estimated altitude of 500 meters. From this experience, the team learned many valuable lessons about how to design and construct high powered rockets, which have informed our choices in the years since.
A successful launch of my first high powered rocket.