Who are we?
We’re a diverse team of undergraduate students with a burning (ha, get it?) passion for rocketry and all things space. Every year, we collaborate to design, build, test, and launch a rocket up to 30,000ft to compete with schools across the world. Our goal is not only to launch and safely recover our rocket, but provide every member on this team the opportunity to learn about rocketry, space systems design, and engineering, all while meeting friends, developing industry-transferrable skills, and working on an incredible cross-disciplinary project.
For students: By joining this team, you can expect to learn real industry-applicable skills in several areas of engineering, including CAD, FEA simulations, Python, C/C++, circuit analysis and design, soldering, composite materials, machining, project management, and many many more. If any of these sound useful or exciting to you, sign up here.
For sponsors/alumni: Building a better rocket each year is no easy feat, and we work tirelessly to make it happen. One of our biggest sources of support is our generous sponsors and alumni, without whom any of this would be impossible. To learn how to support the team or to stay updated with our progress, check out our donation page.
Subteams
Aerostructures
This subteam is responsible for the design and construction of the rocket’s airframe, as well as modeling the flight performance. Advanced composite techniques are used in construction of the fins, body tubes, couplers, and nose cone. Flight simulation, structural analysis, and computational fluid dynamics are all used on this team, making for an excellent balance of exiting hands on work as well as technical design.
Avionics
The Avionics (aviation electronics) subteam is responsible for the creation and integration of our on-board flight computers and other electronics. These devices facilitate GPS tracking of the rocket, parachute deployment events, data logging, and more. Custom PCB design, embedded firmware development, soldering, data processing scripting, and RF engineering are all activities you might experience on the Avionics subteam!
Mechanical
The mechanical subteam designs and builds the internal structure of the rocket, including the thrust structure, mounting plates, and bulkheads. Structural FEA simulations, CAD, and machining are all skills you can develop while working on the mechanical subteam!
Payload
There’s no point in building a rocket without sending something up in it! Payload creates a brand new scientific experiment each year to fly as part of the payload challenge at our competitions. This is an extremely multi-disciplinary team with a lot of opportunity for creativity, as the payload is very open-ended. Previous experiments include a magnetic gradiometry sensor that measured the changes in the earth’s magnetic field, and a proof of concept dark matter particle detector.
Propulsion
While our rockets have previously used commercially sourced solid rocket motors, the propulsion team is developing our first ever student built hybrid rocket engine. The goal this year is a successful hot-fire test. Fluids, combustion chemistry, thermals, pressure vessels, electrical data acquisition, and structures all play a part in the successful creation of this engine.
TechDev
The Technology Development subteam (TechDev) creates and develops an entry for the Technology Development Category at the Launch Canada competition. This subteam, like Payload, is very multi-disciplinary and allows for a lot of creativity! Previous projects include a black box and a flexible rocket-tracking system.
Kit Rocket
This is our member development subteam, allowing new members to build smaller rockets to learn the fundamentals, as well as using smaller rockets to test ideas and systems that we may use on our competition rockets. This is a great opportunity to get your hands on rocketry, as several launches happen per year rather than just the one or two that we get for our full size project.
Team Highlights
1st Place
Launch Canada 2023 – Basic Category
60,000ft
Total Flight Distance since 2018
Mach 1.9
Top Speed
Current members/alumni of the team have went on to many of the top companies, graduate schools, and fellowships in aerospace:
“My most memorable experience was participating in my first competition after first year. Despite being one of the less-experienced members of the team, I was still very involved in the project. I learned so much about problem solving and what it takes to launch a rocket.”
— Melanie, Vice-President, 3rd Year ENPH
Contact
Email: [email protected]
Address: 45 Union St, Room 115C/D, Kingston, ON
Social Media:
Gallery
