SEDS-UCF

From SpaceWiki

A Nationally recognized SEDS Chapter at the University of Central Florida.

About SEDS-UCF

Projects

NASA University Student Launch Initiative The NASA-USLI competition challenges university-level students to design, build and fly a reusable rocket with scientific payload to one mile in altitude. The project engages students in scientific research and real-world engineering processes with NASA engineers. USLI requires a NASA review of the teams' preliminary and critical designs. The project also requires flight readiness and safety reviews before the rockets and payloads are approved for launch. The annual launch event is hosted in April in Huntsville, Alabama.

Florida Space Grant Consortium Hybrid Rocket Competition Each year SEDS-UCF participates in FSGC's Hybrid Rocket Competition. Our "mini hybrid team" is in an effort to give our members more experience in the design, simulation, and flight of smaller-scale rockets, as we launch our own G and H-motor mini-hybrid rockets monthly at the NEFAR rocket launches. The objective of the competition is to build and launch a hybrid powered rocket. There are two categories of competition to choose from. The first category consists of launching a hybrid rocket to the maximum altitude. The second category challenges the teams to fly their rocket closest to 2000 feet in altitude.

L1 Certifications Allow members to build a Level 1 High Powered Rocket to certify with Tripoli or NAR. Students will pay a nominal fee for the motors and their Tripoli membership. SEDS will cover the cost of the kit. Limited funding for this project are available, so a random drawing of students interested will be selected to participate in this project depending on member interest.

Telescope Custom-built telescope project for our astronomy enthusiasts. This project is still in the conceptual phase.

Activities

Space Trivia Jeopardy There comes a time when SEDS-UCF plays the dreaded "Space Trivia Jeopardy" game. You would think that UCF having the largest SEDS chapter that we'd having a lot of people who know space trivia... Unfortunately, no. History questions are the hardest of course. Astronomy questions about planets, stars, or any vocabulary of the sort are easier to answer. The game ends up becoming a contest between teams to see who can get the "least negative" score. Rarely do teams come to Final Jeopardy with a positive score. So we just bid points even though we're all usually in the negative zone. Sounds grueling, doesn't it? lol.

Sugar Propellant Workshop

An annual event. Officers or distinguished members of the club show how to make sugar propellant. After creation, most or all of the sugar propellant made during the workshop is set to burn. The most notable sugar propellant made during this event was in the shape and color of a heart which we dubbed: "Heartburn".

"Heartburn" sugar propellant

Literal "Heartburn". (Yes, it's a terrible pun.)

Water Bottle Rockets Every fall the group gets together to test their engineering skills to build the best water bottle rockets made from common recyclable items and the obvious plastic bottles. Launching them out on the schools Memory Mall, each individual strives to launch theirs as high as possible. It draws attention to the club and all its ambitions from other students!

Launches

Rain or shine, cold or hot, delayed or not we are out at Cape Canaveral for the countdown of the Shuttle, Atlas V, Delta II, Delta IV, and SpaceX launches!