Rocketry
I am one of the sub-team leads of the Tufts Rocketry Team. Last year I earned a level 1 and level 2 high power rocketry certification. For my level 1 I launched the silver and black rocket shown below on an H140 motor and it flew to nearly 3,000ft. Shortly after that I flew the pink and black rocket shown below on a J295. This rocket set the altitude record for my club at 3,600ft. I earned a level 2 high power rocketry certification through this pink and black rocket and was the first freshman and woman at Tufts to earn this certification.
This year I was the lead of the recovery and propulsion subsystems of our team rocket (CARM) that we flew at the 2024 ESRA Spaceport America Cup. I designed, calculated, and tested the operations of recovery of the rocket and oversaw the integration and ignition of the motors - all bough comertial off the shelf - for each test and final competition flight. I was also lead of individual rocket build. This means for every member who wished to build a personal rocket for their certification I guided them through that process, answered questions, and helped them prepare for their certification launched.
I have learned so much from this team. I have gained so much experience in problem solving in an engineering application as well as skills in working with a team. No one in the team was knowledgable on complex to high power rocketry to begin with so we collectively taught ourselves the knowledge and skillsets needed to carry out such a large project.
This year I hope to continue with rocketry and recovery conducting my own side research in conjunction with the team rocket project. I am hoping to come up with a mathematical model of the descent of the rocket under parachute. To do this I will use pre-existing dynamical systems such as the heat equation and Lorentz equations to perfect a PDE system that will hopefully predict the landing posiiton of the rocket given several initial parameters such as weather and qualities of the rocket and recovery operations. This research is very new, more information to come.
