Olin Rocketry is at the heart of the aerospace community at Olin. In the absence of a formal aerospace curriculum, we offer hands-on experience for students and opportunities for leadership, responsibility, and community.
We are a newer and smaller project team and every team member has a huge impact on the team and the success of our rockets.
Our funding enables us to continue our innovative research and development and enables our team to test and compete with our high-powered rockets at competitions such as IREC (Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition) in New Mexico.
We are looking to raise $4,100 during this fundraising cycle. Any funds raised will immediately be funneled back into our R&D program.
- We have budgeted $600 to our avionics team to design and create our own PCBs, sensor fusion algorithm for apogee detection, and hardware mounting.
- We have allocated $1,500 to our structures team to further our new development projects related to the rocket’s airframe. This includes, but is not exclusive to, carbon fiber body tube filament winding, carbon fiber / fiberglass airfoil fins, and fiberglass nosecones.
- We have budgeted $1,500 to our engine team to further the development of an in-house built APCP (Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant) solid fuel engine.
- We have allocated $500 to our payload team to research, develop, and fabricate a payload of scientific merit for our next competition.
We receive sponsorships from corporations such as Blue Origin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, which will cover the cost of our test launches, onboarding process and administrative purchases. We spent about $500 on first-year onboarding where new members built and launched model rockets to better understand rockets on a small scale before working on high-powered rockets.
- We have allocated approximately $950 for administrative purposes such as general operations, travel and costs for small test launches, etc.
- We have budgeted approximately $2,000 for bringing our team to a larger test launch. This estimate includes overnight lodging and food, travel costs (gas), a rocket motor, and any other necessary purchases.
