Genesis of the WBPP: Wernher von Braun Pijama Party

When the team first joint together at the Korelev Lab of the Delft Aerospace Rocket Society, there was a mixture of tension and excitement in everyone's eyes. As the teams were formed, a thin layer of rivalry and competition appeared. When the member of what then would have been called the WBPP came together, it was clear that everyone was coming from different background having different expertise; would that be enough to achieve the mission? How cultural differences in the team would have been overcame?

What about the name for the team?

A pyjama party is a festive get together. Depending on your stage in life the association with a pyjama party changes, a change of perspective that also reflects on the life of Wernher von Braun. Wernher von Braun’s Pyjama Party stands for getting new insights during a group process based around a shared goal, but most of all having fun.

Everyone was questioning weather or not the team he/she ended up was the right one and weather the mission could be accomplished in the future. Those teams that did manage to bring the payload back to the ground were seen as invincible: those rockets, which made it in the past, were conserved in the Korelev Lab like ancient god amulets.
The mission was clear: " Every rocket has to fly to a maximum of 1000 meters mounting an egg as a payload and recovering it completely intact after the touch down".

Easy job for a young team of engineers right?

Commenti

Post popolari in questo blog

Introduction to the Small Rocket Project (SRP)

The small rocket project is a project for bachelor students of engineering faculties at TU Delft who wants to have practical experience in building an amateur rocket. The project is every year organized by the senior members of DARE ( Delft Aerospace Rocket Society ). Students who wants to take part in the project are divided in teams; the ultimate mission of every team is the following: "Launching a small rocket able to reach about 1000 meters of altitude mounting an egg as a payload and recovering it intact". On top of gaining practical experience, experiencing the full cycle design of a rocket and improving team working skills, the SRP gives young students the chance of getting to know the rocket society, their team leaders and the project carried out in the society. The WBPP team at work at the military base of 'T Hard Students experience a full cycle engineering design from the conceptual design, to testing and finally to the launch of the rocket. Teams ...

Continua a leggere

Final Product: A full Carbon Rocket

The Full Carbon Rocket This post aims at showing the final configuration of the rocket giving insight in the details of many subsystems previously not explained. Lower section Arm switch, on off switch, break-wire and LED The electronics part was contained in the upper section. However it had to be linked to the parachute bay in order to trigger the pyro charge. Another important detail was the placement of the switches so that they could be turned on and off from the outside of the rocket. A bulkhead was placed on top of the parachute bay; this had a hole to allow the connection with the pyro charge and it had a bolt on which the stage structure could be screwed on. In addition a metal ring was glued on top of the bulkhead to allow for the switches to be placed on; in this manner a small chamber between the middle and the upper section was created to host the cabling and the switches. Stage Structure, Electronics and wiring One of the most challengin...

Continua a leggere

Pressure Sensor and Python Simulations

As mentioned in the post "Requirement Analysis and Conceptual Design", the rocket had to mount a pressure sensor in order to accurately measure the altitude at which the parachute had to be deployed. In fact the board provided by the electronic team of DARE alone had a timer only; using the timer only to deploy the parachute would have meant trusting completely the simulations done on Open Rocket. However those simulations do not take account of the actual density and pressure at the launch site, the wind speed and direction. For this reason a pressure sensor was used to deploy the parachute exactly at the altitude needed. Hardware An Arduino Nano and a BMP 180 pressure sensor were purchased; because the pressure sensor was an Adafruit product the library had to be imported in order to read the measurement from the pressure sensor. The wiring is very easy and it can be found in many Adafruit guides. The hardest part was to allocate some space for the wires in the stage ...

Continua a leggere

Small Rocket Project

Cerca nel blog