Norco College Rocket Project

Project Overview

When starting this project I had two main goals, build a long lasting, well funded project focused organization, and compete in the Spaceport America Competition.

I wrote a project proposal in the summer of 2019 that was backed and sent by the dean of STEM at NC that was given cabinet approval to fund the initial year of the project. In January of 2020 after seeing my team’s progress, the chancellor of the riverside community college district agreed to assign 100k in annual funds to the project.

In the proposal I wrote to compete in the Spaceport America Cup, I outlined the general size and performance of the rocket we intended to build and fly, along with a prototype rocket. In October of 2019 I was notified that the proposal was accepted and that we were one of five community colleges to be accepted along with 145 universities.

My Role

As the team’s Captain, I was responsible for the structure of the team, as well as the lead engineer. I formed the team into four groups, payload, propulsion, recovery, structures. I hand selected team leads for each group, looking for traits of agreeableness, organizational skills, and past experience, prioritizing in that order.

As for the design strategy of the rocket itself, the theme was “less is more.” From my research, I knew that we were competing with a large funding and knowledge gap. So if we stood a chance, we needed to rely on known reliable components and spend our funds carefully to maximize the impact of our budget.

While our pursuits were cut short by the COV-19 pandemic in March of 2020, I cannot be more proud of my team’s performance.