Stressful Fun: Random College Updates

If I thought I spread myself too thin last semester... I had no idea what was coming! Junior year in aerospace engineering is famous for requiring super-human abilities. Below I have summarized in a random bullet list some of the hectic, crazy objectives I am trying to complete this semester:

• Juggling 18 credit-hours (times 3 is 54 hours/week dedicated to my studies): Flight structures, astrodynamics, flight dynamics, french, and thermodynamics. 
• Flight Structures: Easily my hardest class, since it is based on mechanics of materials, which was the first class that I had to worry about not passing... So I will abe putting some extra effort into this one.
• Astrodynamics: Easily my hardest class, but since it is also my favorite class it really isn't *hard*. The professor also makes it a great class since he is an excellent teacher, extremely knowledgeable and has a definite passion for this subject.
• Flight Dynamics: I'm behind! (I had to wait two weeks for my book to come in the mail). Must go study! The fun part of this class is the part where we get to go to the Ames Municipal Airport and fly airplanes.
• French 101: I have to take a foreign language since I didn't *formally* take one in high school. I picked French since I already had a foot in the door, and some family members already speak it. If the University would let me I would like to learn the basics of a couple languages instead of advancing to 102 in French. For instance, I've learned a few phrases in Chinese and its a fun language to speak.
• Thermodynamics: A lot of it is easy review of physics topics, but the professor is making the class hard. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
• I have already pulled two all-nighters doing homework for classes...
• New project! More on this in another post, but it involves high-altitude balloons and rockets. Going to be a lot of time to see it through to completion.
• Need a part-time job to pay for school. I've applied to some good ones, but if I don't get them I'll have to start thinking smaller, such as working in the dining center, etc. (I have an interview today with a professor in materials engineering about a possible research assistant position). 
• Applying like mad for internships! My number one objective is to land an aerospace internship for either spring or summer, or both. I have a list of about 20 companies in my sights, but have only managed to apply for 3 so far: XCOR Aerospace, ATK and SpaceX. Other options include: ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, Moon Express, Virgin Galactic, and pretty much any NASA center. The list of companies is seeming to grow faster than I can apply.

More in-depth posts to come, specifically on Rockoon, and I'm considering continuing some of my YouTube series if I have the time. Stay tuned!

Fun fact: This is my 300th post on this blog!

College Halfway Point.

Being at the midpoint of any endeavor yields some interesting perspectives. Admittedly, I may be here as long as five years, but the view is still the same. I have come a long way from where I started and I have a long way to go until the finish line.

My journey started out strong freshman year. I got some good grades, met some great friends and had a lot of wonderful experiences. I'm glad I took initiative to get involved on campus and in aerospace projects such as USLI. 

One trend that I've noticed, however, is that each semester my performance is a little lower. Not sure if I'm decreasing in intelligence or just classes getting harder. But this semester I intend to break that trend. I know last year the biggest problem was probably the same problem Alexander the Great experienced in that I spread myself way too thin over classes, projects, and other activities. So this semester is going to be a study on living a simple lifestyle in order to keep the main thing the main thing.

And what is the main thing?

I'm looking ahead to next summer (maybe even this spring) in which I fully intend to land an aerospace internship! All of this year will be spent mainly in preparation for this goal. This includes, but not limited to, getting good grades, making a lot of contacts, talking to professors, getting recommendations, applying to positions, making phone calls, etc. In all of this, I will at least make room for one project, such as USLI.

Recreation and entertainment are important, but need to know they're place at the bottom of the totem pole. For instance, it's a good way to bond with friends and roommates. After I moved in to the apartment, two of my roommates and I went shooting and ate dinner at one of my roommates home, since it was his birthday. It was a great way to start the semester off. 

For some reason after the end of last semester I just had to stop and wonder what it was that I wanted in life. It's funny how I can ask that question and also know exactly where I'm going with my career at the same time. For the past six years I have known that I want to be an aerospace engineer, but suddenly I began to get the inklings of a question on why. Just because it's fun? Because I think it's an important contribution to humanity? Because I want to earn a lot of money and do a lot of cool things in life? What exactly is the point? What would my life look like in ten, twenty years from now? Who will my friends be? Will I have a family? What will I be working towards, fighting for and living for?

And I can just shrug all these questions off now, because, if nothing else, I'll always be living for the glory of God. And if that doesn't make sense to you, I hope and pray that it will someday.

My homey work station.

From left: Me, Darin, Nick.

"Aerospace Engineering?

I'm considering a major in aerospace engineering. Does anyone have any experience in it, or know anyone who does it?"

- A question by Tim Smith, which I answered 7/23/12 at 12:33 in the morning, on Yahoo Answers:

YUP!! I love aerospace engineering. Here's my take:

I first got interested in it through a model rocketry project I did in 4H. It was a scratch-built little rocket that didn't fly straight, and I wondered why. It motivated me to borrow a book from the library on the subject, and learned that my rockets were unstable. I dug deeper and deeper, and in one summer I had my entire life figured out, and wanted to build spacecraft.

Connecting the dots, I found out about an aerospace engineering major. I ended up going to Iowa State (after some recommendations about their aerospace program, I figured it was a good compromise). Iowa State is a slightly different experience than you might find at another school, because you get hands on, major-related courses freshman and sophomore year as well as junior and senior.

Aerospace engineering deals with vehicles that interact with a medium, and is typically subcategorized by aeronautical and astronautical engineering, which deal with airplanes and rockets, respectively. First two years you'll dabble in both disciplines until you have a narrower focus. Me, I'm making a beeline for R&D in rocket propulsion. An efficient propulsion system is key to a feasible space mission. My ultimate passion is for manned deep-space exploration, and someday I hope I can work on the spacecraft that lands man on Mars.

Right now I'm putting together a list of companies I would love to intern for before or just after I graduate. The list currently has 20+ companies which includes SpaceX, XCOR, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, virtually any NASA center, and other companies competing in NASA's CCDev initiative. I'm also looking at small companies that are building suborbital spacecraft, or competing in the Google Lunar X-Prize.

Some people say that aerospace engineering is one of the most difficult engineering disciplines. It is, after all, rocket science. My response to that, however, is that if it's what you love anyway, it will be play and not work. The great joys of aerospace engineering far outweigh the difficulties of heavy mental engagement.

If you're curious about typical salaries, a typical entry-level salary is roughly in the ball-park of $60,000. After ten years working for a company, maybe six figures. It depends, though. If you go into the private space industry, your starting pay may be smaller, but with greater opportunities for future increase. If you go into the civil space industry (i.e. NASA), your starting pay will be much greater, but won't increase as fast. Like most engineering jobs, it pays fairly well because it's a marketable skill. I'm just lucky enough that what I love to do just "happens" to pay well. One thing that you will never have, however, is job security. The aerospace industry is usually pretty turbulent (no pun intended).

That's my story! Sorry if it is more information than you bargained for. I hope you dig deeper and like what you find. We could use you! We could use a more aerospace-oriented economy. But maybe I'm a little biased. Good luck deciding!

Vice President Biden Visiting Howe Hall, ISU

It was such a late notice. Last Sunday we received a cryptic email from our adviser informing us that the Make to Innovate (M:2:I) labs would be closed all week this week. This was horrible timing since we have to finish the USLI rocket by its March 10 test launch date. The email didn't even explain why, except that "it would be revealed the following day."

The closed labs didn't deter us from getting work done. We simply worked where we could. We're actually making great progress this week. The rocket structure is 90% completed, and the payload parts are coming together as well.

Still, we wondered what on Earth the big deal was. People in suits were all over the place, and so were people with guns, and other official stuff. Finally it came out that VP Biden was coming to Iowa State to give an "America Built to Last" speech, and to tour some of the undergraduate research/projects. That's why all the labs were closed down: the department was scrambling to sweep all the messy-looking stuff under the rug and clean up.

Honestly, it reminds me of having to clean my room before doing something fun with my family as a kid. It gets done in the blink of an eye... but don't open the closet. Oh, and don't look under the bed. That's exactly what went down: everything got crammed into one tiny little room, while only selected projects were displayed meticulously in immaculate array.

It's mildly dishonest, because it's not an accurate representation of what goes on. It's also mildly ironic, because Biden's visit is to bolster engineering and productivity... and here we have to shut down all the labs and nobody can do any work.

We were all joking around about pranks we could play... however, we had great difficulty thinking of anything that didn't result in getting pinned to the ground by Secret Service.

Anyway, look for a new post in the next few days about recent build sessions!

USLI -- Fiberglass Layups

We are trying something new this year, attempting our own composite layups of both the body tubes and the fins.

The approach for the body tubes was simple: Just wrap the fiberglass around the tubes, rubbing the epoxy into it and rubbing the air bubbles and defects out along the way. We made five layers on the body tubes, and they turned out fairly well.

For the fins, we are laying up sheets of 1/8th inch fiberglass. This was quite simple, but labor-intensive. It involved cutting out many layers of fiberglass cloth, stacking them neatly inside vacuum bags, sucking all the air out, and then injecting the epoxy, impregnating it into the fiberglass weave. It was quite the experience, and only took a couple hours. Now all we need to do is cut the fins out and sand the airfoils into them.

WHAT????

One of the first things we're going to be doing in my AerE 161 class is to make a simple computer game. This sounded kinda cool, until I heard that we would be doing it...

... in FORTRAN???

UnFORTRANately, FORTRAN doesn't do anything with graphics, sprites, or anything. We have to be a little creative, and do some research on our own.

It will be a simple tanks game, where you try to shoot a target by adjusting the angle of elevation of the cannon. Much like this game.

Nevertheless, this class is going to be very fun. Later on in the semester we will be building RC airplanes, completely from scratch, all of our own designs. But in the meantime, I will have to be satisfied with scratching my head for long hours.

Light at the End of the Tunnel! ...Or is That a Locomotive??

Okay, just kidding. But I can see the end. Only a couple days until Thanksgiving break, and then there are only about three more school weeks until the semester is all over. It's been a long semester, or a quick one, depending on how you look at it. Long, considering all the stuff I've learned and how much life has changed since August. But actually, strictly temporally, it felt faster than a typical high-school semester, probably because the classes go at a much faster pace.

But it's not over yet. Now we have to study for finals.

Due tomorrow is my learning team's technical report for the rocket design project we did in AerE160. We completed the report in about one week, it was a mad dash.

NaNoWriMo continues okay, I'm a little behind schedule though. To reach the 50,000 word mark by November 30th, I should be at 28339 words, and I'm currently at 23216. So it's not terrible. Considering I am capable of doing 10k a day (about average for Nanooks in Pajamas), 1914 a day is NOT an issue in the least.

Thanksgiving blessings:

• Thank you God for a wonderful family to come home to.
• Thank you for giving me a passion for aerospace and your Awesome Creation.
• Thank you  for giving me a great situation here at Iowa State.
• Thank you for saving me from destruction.
• Thank you for being my guidance system.
• Thank you for cereal.
• Thank you for helping me through difficult times as you always have in the past.
• Thank you for mechanical pencils.
• Thank you for wonderful fall colors... while they lasted.
• Thank you for bringing cold weather.
• Thank you for getting me through Multivariable Calculus.
• Thank you God for being my God and for being so awesome.

The Launch

It was a great day, and lots of fun to see all the rocket designs people came up with. There were a lot of great flights... and a lot of failures too! Our rocket performed well, but its second flight randomly went unstable for some reason. We're not sure what was different about the second flight that resulted in the poorer stability because we did everything exactly the same. As usual, blame it on the wind...

In the middle of the day, they paused the rocket launches to fly a model of the Marston Water Tower on an E9 motor. For some reason the rocket just sat and burned on the pad. I can't imagine that the rocketeer who built it didn't calculate their thrust-to-weight ratio, but you never know. Maybe the launch rod was too tight. Maybe the motor didn't work right.

Thankfully the weather turned out great! It didn't rain, it wasn't very cold, and marvelously the wind stayed in a manageable range.

As fun as the event was, I have to say, it was poorly planned.

For one thing, the objective was to stay inside a launch angle of 20 degrees downrange, at apogee. That is a ridiculous objective, especially since it was 100% based on variables beyond our control. The wind, the random weather-cocking, etc. We didn't even get to choose our own launch angle or put our rocket on the launch pad, so how can we have any impact on which direction the rocket takes off? I think maybe the basis of this idea was that stable rockets are going to straighter than unstable rockets, which is true... but pretty much all of the unstable rockets landed within the acceptable range, because immediately after leaving the launch pad they would spin around and plop down, with little chance to veer out-of-bounds.

Other things: They really needed some sort of loudspeaker setup. I'm sure the guy doing all the announcing can't even talk today. Also, I think that if each team were given a queuing number, the launch would have gone much more efficiently, instead of having each group wait in a long line after each flight.

The altitude tracking setup was a little ridiculous, too. The in-class examples of the triangulation methods were similar to the two-station tracking in The Handbook of Model Rocketry, where there is a baseline between the two trackers, an elevation angle, and an azimuth angle. At the launch, the tracking devices measured only the elevation angle, so we were told to estimate the ground angle with our feet... um... yeah. Highly accurate methodology there. I'm sure lot of people just ended up fudging their data, or making it up completely. We'll be comparing these results to our RockSim simulations, but there really isn't any point when we have a precision of + or - 50% to report!

I really shouldn't complain too loudly though, because the event would probably be a disaster if I were given the task of planning it.

Our rocket being placed on the pad

Long lines

Assorted liftoffs

The water-tower-rocket

Test Launch of AerE 160 Rocket

 

Yesterday afternoon, my group went out to the cross country fields to test our rocket before today's launch (1-4pm). The first flight was rather marginally stable, and it shot off in a random direction with a little wiggle in its trajectory. We then added a little nose weight, and it flew much straighter. The third flight was a little embarrassing because I accidentally loaded a C6-0 motor instead of a C6-5, so the parachute deployed way too early and it ripped off and floated away. The rocket was okay though. It should perform fairly well today. 

AerE 160 Rocket

In my AerE 160 class, we are building small model rockets for our final project. Construction approval is tomorrow, so my group pulled a two-hour build session to get it completed. Here is the result:

Yes, it's kind of shabby, but I think it turned out very well for the average skill level of the group. We're going to be building another one just like it, because we need a backup in case this one fails on the first flight.

We opted for a six-fin design, just to differentiate our rocket from all the others in a unique way. Other specs: 17.5 inches long, 29 mm in diameter, and flies on a C6-5 to about 700 feet. We're thinking about painting it red, and maybe another color, like orange or yellow.

It isn't named yet, but I have a sinking feeling it's going to named after our jolly old professor. (He reminds me of Mr. Pendanski from Holes).

Today we had a test on triangulation and do-loops in FORTRAN. The fictional character of choice this time was Iron Man. (He tries too hard to make the exams entertaining).

Okay, enough ramble. Back to the books.

Just Passed 50,000 Hits on YouTube

I think I've been doing pretty well on YouTube. My 27 uploaded videos have been viewed cumulatively over 50,000 times now, and I have attracted 34 subscribers. My highest viewed video has over 15,000 views (and unfortunately isn't even one of the rocketry ones). I hope to continue my work on YouTube to promote aerospace engineering and amateur rocketry.

http://www.youtube.com/user/DTHRocket

Greetings From Florida!

Greetings, Earthlings! I am writing to you from a camp site in Florida, after a long day of touring the campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Sorry there aren't any pictures, My camera was not connecting to my computer for some reason, so I will just have to use a thousand words or more.

I stayed in a dorm room the first night, and got to meet some students, some in engineering, some not, but what I discovered I love about this school so much is that everyone attending share the same passion for the same subject: aerospace. Granted, they're in all sorts of disciplines related to aerospace, but everyone loves flying, airplanes, rockets, you name it. And these students are very serious about their academics. They aren't here to goof off or anything.

Rocket Club at this school means designing and building satellites, driving them over to White Sands, and launching them into orbit. Wow.

I was able to sit in on a class today with an aerospace engineering student. I'm glad I was able to follow along; it was on a subject I have already studied in physics, rotational kinematics. Only kicked up to a college level. We never used double integrals to crank out the moment of inertia in my high school physics class!

Tomorrow morning I am going to observe a student flight, meaning I'm actually going to go up in an airplane with a student and see what flight training is like. Ooooo. I haven't actually flown since I was three years old.

If I can afford it, I am definitely hoping to attend this school in the fall. Embry-Riddle is simply the ultimate school for the aerospace enthusiast.

A Perfect Time For Budding Aerospace Engineers

As odd as it might sound, I'm excited about NASA's budget cuts. The more the load is taken off the government agency's shoulders, the more it is placed on the private sector's. Already the commercial space industry has arrived, with Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Xcor, to name a few rapidly growing privately owned spacecraft companies. Science and technology are increasing at exponential rates (as always), and people like me are dreaming of manned missions out into the Solar System, dreaming of all the amazing discoveries to be made. NASA has been spinning its wheels with the Space Shuttle and the ISS, not getting anything extremely important done. I'm looking forward to some major rumblings and changes through the aerospace industry. I'm waiting for radical new ideas and designs. I can't wait to join in the fun!

Iowa State University

Our trip down to Iowa State University was very informative! They're known for their engineering, and once they finish the new biosystems engineering building, they will have the largest engineering complex in the world.

Iowa State has a giant subsonic wind tunnel that seniors and graduate students use for their projects.

The freshman class is building an aerobat plane that will be entered in an Oshkosh airshow.

Inside the tornado shaped structure is the highest resolution virtual reality device in the world. On the right is a picture of some lonely old high-power rocket sitting in the corner of one of the aerospace labs.

Supersonic wind tunnel:

The campus is really nice. Usually when you think of Iowa you think of cornfields and flat plains. Well, not in Ames. Iowa State's grounds have some really old trees, and during this time of year they were all turning colors as well.

We will be touring the University of Minnesota on Monday. I'm sure it will by similar to ISU in a lot of ways, because they also have a very good engineering program. A plus for U of M (without even having to visit it) is that it is so close. I wouldn't even have to live on campus if I didn't want to.

Particularly Interesting APOD Picture

I always love the pictures posted on Astronomy Picture Of the Day. And these clouds are particularly interesting. Apparently no one knows for sure how they are formed, but every year they appear over parts of Australia.

You know, when it really boils down to it, the whole reason I'm in science and engineering is to better admire the beauty of Creation. If it weren't for the engineers who designed the airplane, this unique view of these unique clouds would not have been possible.

A Trip to the MSP Control Tower...

Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport has been ranked 7th largest in the nation. So it was definately a priviledge to tour behind the scenes the workings of the air traffic control at the MSP airport.

The tour was for my aerospace engineering class, and though it was geared more towards the aviation technology class that was also on the tour, I got quite a bit out of it.

The MSP control tower:

A unique view of the Minneapolis skyline from inside the tower:


There was a catwalk around the top of the control tower that offered an awesome 360 degree view of the surrounding runways and the jetliners departing and arriving:


Overall, I was surprised how little security there was. No one ever even checked my camera case! Obviously they did background checks on us, but it was still pretty astounding. We were walking right into the heart of the air traffic control, the tower, the TRACON room (where we couln't bring cameras) and there was far less security than when you walk onto an air plane.

Update on Aerospace Engineering

You haven't heard from me in a while because of my busy schedule. I'm taking a strategic step forward with this aerospace engineering class, and I wanted to write a brief summary of how that's been going.

Before this point, much of my self-directed study has been on rocketry. This class has exposed me to a whole other facet of aerospace, namely aeronautical engineering. The structure of this class is right up my alley. It's only a class of 7 students! The teacher doesn't do a whole lot of lecturing. Instead, he lets us do our own research, and then present our results to the entire class.

Later on, we will be using what we learned about aerodynamics to actually design and build a small model glider in the adjacent workshop. I'm looking forward to that, because I learn best in hands-on activities as such.

I will be writing another post very soon, because I just recently ordered a 2.4 GHz micro transmitting camera, and will be building a rocket for it soon to fly in the spring! So stay tuned.

Radio Control

I've just recently gotten into radio control (after years of wanting too) with this Eagle Eye helicopter. It's already been a great learning experience, so using my infant knowledge of RC, I'm planning on tackling yet another ambitious project... but more on that later. I won't be able to do much flying of anything until spring.

This helicopter was designed to carry a small micro-transmitting video camera, which is giving me all the more insentive to purchase that Booster Vision GearCam. And, using my 72 MHz transmitter, I'm toying with the idea of rigging a system for being able to manipulate and aim the camera from the ground.

But nothing is going to happen yet, because I am on a new schedule. I recently started to go to public school full time, and while this is excellent preparation for college (especially since all my classes are honors classes), I have no more time for tinkering and rocket-building.

Selah.

Aerospace Engineering at STEP

I'm all excited, because this next semester I'm going to be taking aerospace engineering via Secondary Technical Education Program. I don't know much yet; all I know is that its major outcomes are:

• Introduction to aerodynamics design and testing.
• Flight systems and areospace materials.
• Space life sciences and astronautics.

And its instructional focus is on: experiments, project testing and field trips.

It sounds right up my alley, and is completely free (considered part of high-school education). I'll post more about it when I get more information.