Aerospace Engineering Major Perfects The Launch Of High Powered Rockets

[00:00:05] >> All right so what this is... I am I'm the chief engineer for the NASA Student Launch Initiative team here at Virginia Tech and that's a nationwide competition that's open to undergraduate students from U.S. universities. So you enter as a team, you build a rocket and a payload. [00:00:23] So we want to make sure that the parachutes pop out when they're supposed to, that the charges are big enough to push out the parachute when they're supposed to, and that the altimeter sets those charges off at the right time. Didn't happen last time. We had a faulty altimeter and so nothing came out and our rocket went straight into the ground. [00:00:44] It was really stable and flew really straight but it just flew the opposite direction then we were hoping it would go at that point. So having to build it again has really helped me to increase my confidence level. After watching it and after doing it one time like "Ok I can probably do this again" In fact, before the launch I was I was telling my wife I'm like you know it's nice because I think if I had to I could build a new rocket and what do you know? [00:01:07] I had to build a new rocket! But it's so far turning out well and as long as things function well tomorrow we should be good to go. Ok come on. Come on. Yes yes yes! Hey! There it is! Alright! Woo! It worked! ...watching it go up, holding your breath... [00:01:49] Something popped out, Ok we're better than last time already and just waiting for that extra cherry on the top with the main popping out. It was great, it feels really good to have built, and launched, and successfully recovered my first high-powered rocket.