8 THE CORNELL DAILY SUN | Wednesday, February 27, 2013
SCIENCE
Rocketry
Entomology
Plant Genomics
Project Team Develops Rockets By YVONNE HUANG Sun Contributor
Formally known as Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, Cornell Rocketry is a passionate engineering project team that develops rockets. Christina Middleton ’14, Matthew Skeels ’15 and Matthew Gentile ’15 are mechanical engineers who founded the project team after finding a common interest in rocketry within the broader spectrum of the exploration and development of space. Their supervisor is Prof. Ephrahim Garcia, mechanical and aerospace engineering. “We’re a bunch of enthusiastic engineers interested in building high-powered rockets that will go about a mile high for the NASA University Student Launch Initiative, a competition for different college rocketry teams,” Middleton said. The team, mostly comprised of underclassmen, will not be competing this year but will be attending the competition to see other teams’ work. The University Student Launch Initiative takes place once every year in Alabama, with over 30 university teams taking part in the competition. Every team is required to meet certain checkpoints throughout the year before reaching the final Launch Day in April. Rockets are expected to reach, but not exceed, about a mile high. At the end of the competition, awards are given out based on categories such as Best Vehicle Design, Best Overall Rocket and Best Team Spirit. “We’re just beginning to fabri-
cate [the rocket]. We’ve built a small model of the rocket, but I hope to have a seven-foot rocket built by the end of this semester,” said Gentile, the head of the air frame subsystem of the project team. The air frame subsystem is responsible for physically creating the rocket. The competition requires that rockets carry a scientific payload, or some form of scientific experiment. Middleton wants to incorporate small robotic crawlers made with 3D printers into the rocket’s payload. These insect-like robots will be able to survey large areas of land using incorporated sensors after being shot out of the launched rocket. “We’re trying to design them aerodynamically so that when they are released from the rocket, they spiral and disperse onto the ground,” Middleton said. Along with a GPS, microcontroller and other sensors, the crawlers would have nitinol actuators to enable movement. These small wires are superheated with electrical current, making them flexible and simulating a crawling motion. These wires have significant contractile force, allowing them to act as “muscles” for the robots, said Middleton. The payload subsystem already has prototypes printed and is currently working on developing the most efficient gait for the robotic crawlers, said Middleton. The idea of having crawlers as the scientific experiment on the rocket came from the slow rovers NASA has sent out to planets throughout the years. “With these crawlers, more ground can be covered due to their higher mobility,” Middleton said. Cornell Rocketry wants to create
COURTESY OF CHRISTINA MIDDLETON ’14
Forming frames | Matthew Gentile ’15 and Ariane Walker-Horn ’15 work on the fins for the rocket’s frame. crawlers that can be dispersed onto foreign planets to gather data and further space exploration, she added. Another aim of Cornell Rocketry is that the rocket is reusable, allowing students to be environmentally conscious in their building process. “We want to recover the rocket and not have it fall apart when it hits the ground,” Skeels said. As the head of the Recovery and Tracking subsystem, Skeels is responsible for making sure the rocket can be found and launched again in under four hours, as per competition rules. The competition rules also mandate that the rocket land within a 2,500 foot radius of the
launching platform, making drift a significant problem for the R&T subsystem. But with the use of two parachutes – one small and heavy and the other large and light – with staggered deployment times, Cornell Rocketry hopes to easily overcome this part of the competition. In addition to being environmentally conscious, the competition aims to make participating teams points of outreach in their respective communities. Teams are expected to promote NASA’s longterm goal for education and interest in the field of rocketry and science in general, according to Middleton. Cornell Rocketry is working on developing programs with high
schools and middle schools in the area to meet this goal. After viewing the competition in Alabama this April, Cornell Rocketry will gain better perspective and improve their designs in order to compete next year. “We want to expand and include more people who are interested in rockets in order to complete our goals. We’re in need of people to reach out to corporate sponsors and to set up outreach programs with middle and high school students. With the right people, I believe Cornell Rocketry can be an extremely successful project team,” Middleton said. Yvonne Huang can be reached at yyh4@cornell.edu.
COURTESY OF CHRISTINA MIDDLETON ’14
Blasting Off | The engineering project team Cornell Rocketry aims to build a model rocket that will go at least a mile high and land back on the ground without being destroyed.