Blog #8 | Sponsors and Barbecues and Testing, oh my!
There has been no shortage of activity these past two weeks in SEDS and we want to share all of it with you! All teams, both engineering and business have been working non-stop in order to prepare the team for the end of the semester.
After the previous hot-fire attempt in which our igniter failed to start the ignition of the HTPB fuel, we have been exploring alternative methods of pre-pressurizing the combustion chamber using either 3D printed “burst caps” as we’ve come to call them or by using a commercial solid rocket engine as both the igniter and the pressure cap. Both methods have been continuously tested over the past week using various sizes of o-rings and caps to find the perfect fit of 150 psi before beginning oxidizer flow. Over Thanksgiving break, we plan to arrive at a final cap design to use for a full hotfire attempt during the first week of December.
Also this week, several team members were interviewed by The New Hampshire newspaper and we had an article written here! https://tnhdigital.com/2019/11/21/unh-seds/
For business news, the UNH SEDS team has so far raised over 5x our entire budget for last year due to our gracious sponsors! We would like to welcome two more who have recently joined the SEDS family, Westinghouse Electric and GE Aviation. Last week, GE Aviation held a presentation and discussion for our team from some of their employees, some of which who are UNH alumni. We are always looking for sponsors to come in and discuss their experiences and what the industry is truly like, and any sponsors or companies interested in coming to a meeting can email Alice Wade at unhseds@gmail.com!
Tonight as part of our fundraising incentive program, we held a barbecue for all of our members during the general meeting. Special thanks to the UNH Technical Service Center for letting us use their grill! After that we also had a presentation by Andrew Masters, a seasoned team member, on Quadcopter design and control. Now, I think it is time to take a break from rockets and space and enjoy some family time, and most importantly, turkey and pie.
