Rocket Project Success

Many of you know this already, but the rocket project has been carried out EXTREMELY WELL by our team. Their official competition launch was successful and came within 86 feet of the target altitude of 2000 feet. One test launch (over at the launch site in Madison County run by the NFCC Sentinel Rocket Club) had reached 2900 feet, so the rocket was capable of much more than the competition demanded.

This was the only non-hybrid rocket, so it was guaranteed to win its class. However, I was particularly pleased to read the following in the e-mail from the director of the competition:

... we had 6 teams competing in the hybrid competition and your team was the most consistent with your reports and you were closer to 2000 ft.

I believe that means our team would have won an "open" competition against the teams launching hybrid rockets! As I said above: you did an EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE job.

By the way, team members, don't think that detail about "most consistent with your reports" is a minor compliment. Teams have won major national competitions (like the concrete canoe race in civil engineering or some of the robot competitions in mechanical or electrical engineering) because their documentation and project presentation took top marks over a team that was slightly better in what they thought was the main competition. Being tops in both metrics (consistent reporting and hitting the target altitude) is a real triumph.

IMPT. ENGINEERING CLUB MEETING FRI. 10/31/08 @ 2:30 SM 260

In case you are not on Vernon’s email list… Here is a
MESSAGE FROM VERNON

I hope to see all club members at SMA 260 at 2:30 this Friday. In addition we will be going over our club roster for submission to the SOC. If any members would like to email me their name and student id number in advance to the meeting for convenience, feel free to do so. The Space Grant Consortium has received our W-9 form and we should be receiving funding for the rocket competition soon. All who are interested in continuing research for our rocket team should attend the meeting. Next month we begin building and planning for testing!!!
Vernon Babich
Engineering Club Chair
850-510-2473
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MESSAGE FROM VERNON

Hey Everyone,

Our last meeting was a great success. Some new plans for the upcoming weeks have been established as well as for the future. We will be finishing up a few mechanical things on the cart such as the dolly rack and the fans. The panels will also be glued on with electrical safe silicon based glue. For the future we are planning on utilizing new batteries for an ongoing project.

Our future meetings will be based mostly on education and application of electronics. Since our goal in the solar project is to increase efficiency, it is essential that we all know how to use and improve the basics of the cart’s electrical set up. These classes are currently being headed up by Aaron Bauldree who we all appreciate very much for spending his time teaching us. They will be starting out basic and if anyone misses a meeting you should contact someone in the club or email me at babic541@mymail.tcc.fl.edu. By teaching each other, we all improve and of course get to know each other.

It also seems that a specialization approach to the projects in the future is an idea held by most of the club. It’s been really exciting to see everyone breaking up things by engineering discipline and forming committees. Currently we have one committee for the dolly rack but others seemed to be unofficially forming. The club also wants to be able to understand every part of the project.

So much more to come! I hope to see you all at the next meeting this Friday at 3:30 pm in SM 260 “the usual.”

Vernon Babich
Engineering Club Chair.


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Notes: The "last meeting" referred to above was on Friday, June 6, 2008 @ 3:30 pm in room SM 260. The next meeting will be Friday, June 13, 2008 @ 3:30 pm in room SM 260.
~~ DJ

Engineering Club's "Cart-toSolar" Project Receives Grant!

Dateline -- Fri. 01/25/2008

During an Engineering Club Budget Planning Meeting late Friday afternoon, word was received that the Club had been awarded a College Innovation Fund Grant for the furtherance of its "Cart-to-Solar" (Golf Cart) Project.

This is tremendously great news! Details will be forthcoming.

DJ.

SOLAR PROJECT MEETING SAT. 1/12/08

Information Supplied by Aaron Bauldree.

A. On Saturday, January 12, seven members of the TCC Engineering Club's Solar Project Committee met at All Saints Cafe to discuss the goals of the project and work on the College Innovation Fund proposal. The members that met were: Aaron Bauldree, Vernon Babich, Benjamin Holiber, Ann Wolfgang, Henry Youn, Matthew Rakestraw, and Kory Rash. Everyone was able to learn exactly what the College Innovation Fund is, and how it will be able to benefit our efforts. We were also able to complete the proposal for this request. If the club is awarded the requested $2500, we will be able to fully investigate how these panels can be used, as well as possibly have more than one cart fitted with solar panels before the end of this semester.

While the planning stage is completed, we are now ready to put the plan in action. Starting this week, we are going to start setting the foundation for the data collection process concerning the baseline energy consumption of the control cart.

As soon as the P3 Kill A Watt electrical usage meter arrives, we will start collecting data. So there is still much more work to be done, and everyone that is interested in contributing will have an opportunity.

B. Aside from the solar project, we also discussed presenting the opportunity for club members to give presentations during each club meeting. While these presentations will be brief, they will give an excellent opportunity for club members to practice their presentation skills.

Presentation is a key skill that engineers need when entering the working force. These presentations are completely voluntary and can cover any subject. It is just an opportunity to practice a skill that will help club members become better in the field of engineering. Anyone interested in volunteering to make a presentation needs to contact the Club President, Aaron Baudree, to be scheduled into the agenda.

TCC ENGINEERING CLUB SOLAR PROJECT

As a result of a great deal of preliminary work by club members, a decision was made at the meeting of Sept. 21, 2007, to pursue a project of conversion of a TCC golf cart to solar power. A team was formed, headed by Aaron Bauldree.

The team's first meeting was Sat. Sept. 29. Here is a summary of the meeting, provided by Komlan Amesse.

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We met today at 11am at All Saints Cafe. Those present were Komlan Amesse, Ann Wolfgang, Giovanni Meritis, Aaron Bauldree and Ramonn Soto. This meeting is the kickoff of the project. We talked about all the physical constraints we will face and how to get the project done on time. The solar system we going to build is called Solar Assistant System. Aaron set up a forum web ( http://www.tccsolar.freeforums.org ) page where everyone can go and discuss the project. We assigned to ourselves a duty to research on the efficient solar panel to use. We also decided that it will be very nice to find a solar panel that we can display on Oct 03 at the TCC Spirit Day. (Do you know anyone that own solar panel that we can borrow and just display it for the event?) The meeting ended at 12:08.

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I encourage everyone to visit the forum.

If you would like to participate in this project, please contact Aaron via the forum. It is very easy to register and log in.