The Rocketry Team is a “passion project” for many students
For several student clubs and organizations, the summer is seen as a time for rest, reflection, and recruitment. But for the University of Ottawa Rocketry Team, the past couple of months have been a time of intense preparation for a launch competition.
LaunchCanada is hosting a competition from August 25-27, drawing in competitors from universities across the country, the second-ever of its kind in Canada.
“There are some prizes with money. For sure we aim for those but the fact to launch a rocket itself is already an accomplishment for us,” said Sébastien Girard, captain and project manager of the U of O Rocketry Team, and fourth-year software engineering student.
“It’s a friendly competition. There’s some prizes but at the end of the day, the goal of it is [for] all the teams [to] launch [their] rocket, gain some experience, help each other and launch [their] rocket to 20,000 feet.”
Gee Force One is the Rocketry Team’s project for the competition. “It’s a three-meter rocket, and we’re hoping that it flies to at least 23,000 feet at almost Mach 2,” described Akif Ahmed, leader of the Rocketry Team’s finance group and fourth-year mechanical engineering student.
“We’ve had to make a lot of design, consumer considerations and upgrades from our previous rocket just because it’s significantly more complex and powerful.”
The U of O Rocketry Team is additionally working to incorporate their own computer systems into their rockets, testing the first iteration of the systems this year.
“We’re developing [a] custom avionics system. So we make her own printed circuit board so we make our own little computers, we program our computers, and we use specific protocols for multiple computers in the rocket to interact together, save data, send telemetry in real-time and control the parachutes,” said Girard.
Designing Gee Force One, and other team projects, has not come easy since the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the sudden shift to virtual activities, club members are still navigating a loss of knowledge from former members who have completed their studies at the U of O.
“[Gee Force One] started off as a two-year project, but COVID tends to extend timelines. Then we’re also hoping to make modifications and advancements on our flight computer, so that it can handle hybrid rocket motor as well as more complex in-flight calculations,” explained Ahmed.
Outside of the competition, the Rocketry Team is preparing to welcome new members at the start of their semester with Ahmed calling the team a large “passion project”.
“We don’t get graded for this, we don’t get paid for this. So everyone that works on the team, they take pride in the work we do and we’re just passionate about rocketry.”
The team is highly welcoming to students of all different interests who want to be involved, whether their goal lies with robotics, medicine or civil engineering.
“I think if people would like to challenge themselves on something they’ve never done before, engineering teams and rocketry in particular will be a good place to start.” said Ahmed. “It may seem like it’s just a rocket, but there are a lot of complex system that go within it. And if someone wants to do a particular project, we’ll make something up for them.”
