September Newsletter
Starting the Club
Hurricane Rocketry Club launched this year, starting with the University of Tulsa Activities Fair, which encouraged many people to join the club. This month, the focus has been on fundraising and planning. Under the tutelage of Tulsa Rocketry Paul Reed and Mechanical Engineering Master’s Student Michael Lester, students learned to use OpenRocket and RasAero II to design rockets and simulate their flight.
We started preparing for this year’s overarching goal – to compete at the Spaceport America Cup, launching a rocket to 10,000 feet – by forming our initial design of the rocket and brainstorming for a payload project.
High Frontier Launching
On September 21, the 11 members of the Hurricane Rocketry Club attended the High Frontier Rocket Launching in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, organized by Tulsa Rocketry. Students got the opportunity to watch rockets of various sizes and levels be launched, as well as talk to rocketry experts about their rockets. Master’s student mentor Michael Lester taught the club how to assemble a rocket motor before launching and how to actually launch it, giving many students their first experience with an actual rocket.
Working Towards L1 Certifications
We have also started working towards L1 Certifications. While we have L2- and L3- certified mentors, most student members of the club are not certified – an integral part of launching rockets and especially in participating in the Spaceport America Cup. We purchased 10 LOC-4 rocket kits, which ten students will get the chance to build and launch, as we plan to certify 10 members each month. Once everyone has their L1 certification, we will move towards helping people get their L2 certification. The rocket launching for the certifications is scheduled for October 13.