Peak to Peak students design payloads to launch on sport rocket
Jul. 20—Students from Lafayette's Peak to Peak Charter School are sending a project they designed on the United Launch Alliance's intern sport rockets that are set to launch Saturday near Pueblo.
Phillip Fischer and Calvin Johnson, incoming sophomores at Peak to Peak, took an unsuccessful design from last summer and improved it for this year's launch.
"It's a bunch of trial and error," Phillip said. "You have to double- and triple-check that everything works. There is only one launch per year, so you have to make sure it's perfect."
United Launch Alliance first teamed with Ball Aerospace in 2008 to offer its interns a real-world space industry experience. In 2010, the program expanded to include payloads from K-12 students, along with those from college students.
On Saturday, the plan is to launch three high-power sport rockets — Sine, Cosine and Tangent — up to 4,200 feet. The rockets will carry 18 payloads designed and built by the Ball Intern Rocket Science Team and K-12 student teams from across the country.
Each payload is judged on design, testing and performance. The top three scoring teams earn a cash prize for their school or a nonprofit organization.
Phillip and Calvin said they're feeling confident about the atmospheric sensor payload that they're sending up in Saturday's launch.
Phillip's first experience with the rocket launch was as a sixth grader in a school club that created payloads for the project. Two years ago, Phillip and Calvin entered on their own, buying the parts and starting to build a payload. But that launch ended up canceled because of the pandemic.
Last summer, they built a payload that included a sensor, Arduino and an SD card to record data. The components were contained in a 3D-printed framework.
They said they tried to use screws to secure the components to the frame, but it didn't work well because the mostly hollow frame was too fragile. Their setup also could only record data from a single device, so they didn't include a camera as originally planned. Once in the air, their payload failed to record data.
"It had a lot of design flaws," Calvin said. "We were doing it on the fly."
Though their first attempt at the project wasn't successful, Phillip added, "overall it was a really cool experience."
For Saturday's launch, they refined and revised their sensor project, with some extra help from Calvin's brother, Grant, and one of their Peak to Peak classmates.
"We knew what we had to do, but not how to do those things," Calvin said. "I got to learn a lot of things. I like thinking about how everything works together. It's a lot of work, but a lot of fun."
They switched from Arduino to CircuitPython, which proved more reliable. They added a gyroscope and camera. They also used a better software program to design their new 3D-printed framework and, instead of screws, used adhesive strips.
"We wanted to simplify everything and make it more straightforward with fewer moving parts," Phillip said.
Their sensor measures temperature, air pressure, humidity and altitude, which will be recorded in flight. After, they're hoping to use a program to translate the data and create a simulation of the payload's flight.
To help with recovery of their payload after the launch, they're using a bright orange chassis and parachute. The parachute, they added, is bigger than the one they used last year, and they said it performed well when they tested it by throwing the payload off a roof. The entire payload weighs less than a pound, well under the 15-pound limit.
Calvin is considering a computer science major. Phillip, an aerospace enthusiast, said he's interested in pursuing engineering in college — and, after meeting the CEO of United Launch Alliance at a rocket launch event, is hoping to join the college intern team that builds the rockets.
"That's the path for getting a job there," he said.
