project log
Thursday, October 8 — Professor A. V. Anilkumar
The Vanderbilt University Student Launch Initiative (VUSLI) is proud to announce that two of its members, James Board and Ben Chociej, have been Level 2 certified by the National Association of Rocketry and the Tripoli Rocketry Association , respectively. Level 2 certification requires both a rigorous written examination on safety rules and regulations as well as a practical flight and recovery test. Having certification allows members to launch up to L-Class motors (5,120.00 N·s).
These accomplishments ensure that VUSLI has student leaders to assist Safety Officer Robin Midgett during high powered rocket launches. VUSLI will be continuing its efforts to seek certification for junior members of the organization in order to maintain its commitment to safety.
Monday, August 24 — Ben Chociej
Now that we're back into the swing of things — and the Vanderbilt webserver is back up and running smoothly — we're getting ready to transition the USLI website for this year's new project. Hopefully the new website design looks good. Feel free to give us some feedback! Check back soon for more updates!
Friday, April 24 — Will Runge
This morning, we gave a presentation to the Mechanical Engineering External Advisory Committee (VUME-EAC) about our project. We were one of only two or three projects that were given this honor. They seemed to like our presentation quite well. The PowerPoint file can be downloaded here: aero_eac.ppt .
I also finally got around to uploading the maiden flight videos of the Proof of Concept #2 UAV and Competition UAV. They came out pretty nice. The resolution is a little shaky, and I cropped each one down to just a minute or two so your ADD doesn't run wild and prevent you from watching the whole thing.
Here's the maiden flight of the competition UAV:
And the maiden flight of the second proof of concept UAV:
older entries »
2008-09 project summary
Rocket-Launched Reconnaissance UAV
The Vanderbilt Aerospace Club is a student organization at Vanderbilt University. We are a group of engineering students under the guidance of faculty advisor Dr. A. V. Anilkumar. We are financed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Tennessee Space Grant Consortium, the Tennessee Section of the AIAA, and the Vanderbilt Mechanical Engineering Department .
The majority of the club's membership consists of those engineering students who have chosen to participiate in the School of Engineering's Senior Design Project. The current function of the club is to compete in the NASA University Student Launch Initiative (USLI) competition and to present the project at both the regional AIAA Student Conference and the various events included in the Senior Design Project.
This year's project is the development of a rocket-launched reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The rocket that delivers the UAV to altitude is powered by an M-class motor and is 10 inches in diameter by 16 feet tall. It features a 6-foot payload tube that houses the UAV inside a foam shell called a sabot.
The UAV is in many ways more complicated than the rocket considering its electronics suite. It carries a 1.0 GHz onboard computer, a GPS tracking unit, and multiple cameras for collecting reconnaissance imagery. The UAV is propelled by a special folding propeller that allows it to fit in the sabot and a motor driven by a lithium-polymer (Li-Poly) battery.
