First Nations Launch
Every year, the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC) hosts the . FNL offers Tribal Colleges and Universities, Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution, and AISES collegiate chapters the opportunity to design, build, and launch a high-powered rocket. With webinars to teach engineering and design skills, no rocketry experience is required, and CU AISES members participate as a team given enough interest. Although CU AISES participated in the 2018 FNL competition but the team was inactive until 2021-2022, where members came together to establish the recurring FNL team the Trailblazers. With a variety of grade levels, experience, and majors, the CU Trailblazers placed second overall in their challenge category in the 2022 competition. A new team has been brought together for the 2023 launch, with members tackling a manufacturing challenge.
More About the Project
With faculty advisors and rocketry mentors, each member of the Trailblazers learned individual skills necessary for the rocket. Depending on the interest of individual students, we participated in soldering workshops through CU and attended webinars hosted by FNL staff. The webinars covered topics such as the fundamentals of high-powered rocketry and how to use a rocket flight simulator to assist in design parameters to meet challenge requirements like reaching a specific height. Part of the competition was building a rocket with a dual-deploy recovery system (two parachutes), so we attended webinars about how to connect our parachutes to sensors and Arduino computers so that they deploy at the right time. One of our rocketry mentors taught us how to use epoxy to construct our rocket and we were able to meet with FNL judges who guided us on adjusting our airframe. No one on our team had previously built a high-powered rocket and we all took part in learning new skills and contributing to writing the reports and creating the presentations for the competition.
Along with winning second place in our challenge category, we also won first place in the written reports category, which was part of a section of additional awards. Our whole team was sponsored by the Colorado Space Grant Consortium (COSGC), and our trip to Wisconsin for launch weekend with the other teams was paid for by COSGC and WSGC alike.
The debut Trailblazers' rocket was a 5.5" diameter rocket with a K-class motor. Affectionately named Big Chungus, this rocket reached a peak height of 3160ft above ground level and hosted sensors that gauged its altitude and orientation. Featuring a dual-deploy parachute system, Big Chungus was built with the intention of a safe recovery that would make the rocket reusable. Unfortunately, Big Chungus only saw two launches, with the launch at the FNL competition blowing out the back end of the airframe and motor retainer.