TEAM ROCKET
Winning the 2025 Midwest High-Power Rocketry Competition
Bethel University Rocket Club (and I) won first place in the biggest rocket competition in the Midwest!
The competition had two simple goals: launch one rocket with apogee as close to 1000 feet as possible, and launch another as high as possible. As part of the construction team, I made many of the key design decisions--the biggest being what diameter the rocket would have and which kit we would use as a base. Since one of our launches was max apogee, I had to evaluate the drag tradeoff between increasing the fineness ratio to reduce pressure drag and increasing the diameter to reduce wetted area and therefore skin-friction drag, assuming a fixed internal volume. I calculated that pressure drag effects dominated, so we used a minimum diameter rocket kit.
The 1000' rocket used a custom-designed piece to transition between the minimum diameter upper section to a wider lower section holding cast lead weights. I ran a finite element analysis of the transition piece to make sure it could withstand the required forces.
Both rockets shared an upper section with almost no room for a parachute. By launch day, I had mastered the art of folding and packing the parachute tight enough to fit in the body tube without it getting tangled upon ejection.
We competed against 13 teams and won first place. We had the closest launch to 1000 feet and the launch with the highest apogee.
Below are the simulation models for both rockets with arrows marking center of gravity, center of pressure, and stability.
As fun as it was to win the competition, my favorite memory from this season is leading a model rocketry workshop where I got to help two kids build their first rockets.
