Rocketry is one of my favourite hobbies! I started off at my secondary school's rocketry society, building small model rockets and designing larger, more ambitious ones; I spent time building model rockets with my family at home and eventually became a leading member of the school rocketry society. These were simple, solid-fuel rockets to launch on the school fields and at the beach, some from Estes kits and others from cardboard tubes and custom 3D printed parts.
At university, I have been involved with ICLR (Imperial College London Rocketry). We went to California in the Summer of 2024 to launch our 2-Stage altitude record attempt rocket, Sirius. My main roles on the team were in manufacturing and also videography. With my experience in composites, machining and 3D printing, I helped manufacture the main rocket. I also recorded as much of the trip as possible, including interviews with the team and a livestream of the launch event that I set up and ran myself in the 46 degree heat!
The ICLR main team, competes in EuRoC (The European Rocketry Competition) every year. My responsibilities for the main team last year were to design retractable/detachable launch lugs for the rocket; and a 12m launch rail tower so that we can perform test launches in the UK before the competition. This year I am going to build the launch rail, as well as a CNC fibre-winding machine for creating our own custom-spec body tubes for the rocket.
Pictured left [in the orange] is a parametric motor mount for model rockets that I designed. You can enter the tube, motor and fin dimensions into Fusion 360 and the part can be printed with no supports. The purple nosecone is made the same way.
Pictured left [in the orange] is a parametric motor mount for model rockets that I designed. You can enter the tube, motor and fin dimensions into Fusion 360 and the part can be printed with no supports. The purple nosecone is made the same way.
Pictured right is the rotation mechanism I designed for the ICLR launch rail. The rail will be 12m tall, with capability to expand modularly. It has 3 legs, and launch angle adjustment. I am going to start manufacturing it over the next few months, it's going to be a lot of waterjet cutting and welding so hopefully a lot of fun!
