Send Knights Rocketry to Spaceport America Cup
Help our team launch UCF’s most powerful rocket at the 2020 IREC international competition!
Greetings from UCF Knights Rocketry– we are a joint team with members from two clubs: Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) & American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) UCF chapters. This year SEDS & AIAA are joining forces to produce the most competitive rocket that UCF has built for the Spaceport America Cup. By combining our resources, rocketry experience, and bright minds we hope to win this year’s competition & bring home the gold for the University of Central Florida.
SEDS & AIAA are student organizations within UCF that allows students to gain experience through participation in projects, conferences, and other networking events. In the 2018-2019 academic year, SEDS UCF competed in the 10,000 ft. - Student Researched and Developed (SRAD) category at IREC, marking the team’s third year at the competition. The team researched, developed, and manufactured its own carbon-fiber body tube, solid rocket propellant, micro-gravity payload experiment, and nozzle, among other things. The same year, AIAA UCF competed in the 30,000 ft. category of FAR 1030-5R, another student rocketry competition hosted by Friends of Amateur Rocketry in Mojave, CA. The team designed and manufactured all of the reusable casing hardware for an experimental solid rocket motor, which was machined in-house at UCF’s Manufacturing Lab. The rocket launched successfully to an altitude of 21,348 feet and a maximum velocity of Mach 1.25, earning second place in its category.
The International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) is one of the largest projects that student members have the opportunity to participate in. Over 100 university teams from around the world convene in the desert of New Mexico every June for the competition.
The event is kicked off with a conference in Las Cruces where teams showcases their rockets and payloads that they’ve spent the last year working on, in front of judges and industry professionals. Next, the teams travel 3 hours north to Spaceport America where they spend the next 4 days camping in the desert and launching their rockets. Finally, they attend the awards banquet back in Las Cruces before making the long trip home.
The competition is broken down into different categories; this year, our joint team aims to produce a hybrid rocket that will compete in the 10,000 ft. - SRAD Hybrid/Liquid category at IREC. The team has very ambitious goals such as the implementation of 3D printed fuel grains, live flight data telemetry, and to be as close to 100% student research and developed as possible; we will make everything we possibly can ourselves, rather than buy it off the shelf.
Designing and building the hybrid rocket propulsion system and implementing these new innovative systems poses considerable challenges for the team’s budget. The UCF Student Government Association financially supports us by matching the money the team is able to raise through fundraising and donations, up to half of the approved budget, so your donations will be doubled for our budget! Historically, the largest contributions to the budget was from the extremely generous contributions of team members and their friends and family. This community of supporters is responsible for the amazing experience that so many students were able to participate in. SEDS-UCF & AIAA-UCF would like to ask for your support in getting our team and rocket out to the competition in New Mexico! This is a truly amazing experience for young students and we will be forever grateful if you can help us achieve these amazing goals. Go Knights!
Greetings from UCF Knights Rocketry– we are a joint team with members from two clubs: Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) & American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) UCF chapters. This year SEDS & AIAA are joining forces to produce the most competitive rocket that UCF has built for the Spaceport America Cup. By combining our resources, rocketry experience, and bright minds we hope to win this year’s competition & bring home the gold for the University of Central Florida.
SEDS & AIAA are student organizations within UCF that allows students to gain experience through participation in projects, conferences, and other networking events. In the 2018-2019 academic year, SEDS UCF competed in the 10,000 ft. - Student Researched and Developed (SRAD) category at IREC, marking the team’s third year at the competition. The team researched, developed, and manufactured its own carbon-fiber body tube, solid rocket propellant, micro-gravity payload experiment, and nozzle, among other things. The same year, AIAA UCF competed in the 30,000 ft. category of FAR 1030-5R, another student rocketry competition hosted by Friends of Amateur Rocketry in Mojave, CA. The team designed and manufactured all of the reusable casing hardware for an experimental solid rocket motor, which was machined in-house at UCF’s Manufacturing Lab. The rocket launched successfully to an altitude of 21,348 feet and a maximum velocity of Mach 1.25, earning second place in its category.
The International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) is one of the largest projects that student members have the opportunity to participate in. Over 100 university teams from around the world convene in the desert of New Mexico every June for the competition.
The event is kicked off with a conference in Las Cruces where teams showcases their rockets and payloads that they’ve spent the last year working on, in front of judges and industry professionals. Next, the teams travel 3 hours north to Spaceport America where they spend the next 4 days camping in the desert and launching their rockets. Finally, they attend the awards banquet back in Las Cruces before making the long trip home.
The competition is broken down into different categories; this year, our joint team aims to produce a hybrid rocket that will compete in the 10,000 ft. - SRAD Hybrid/Liquid category at IREC. The team has very ambitious goals such as the implementation of 3D printed fuel grains, live flight data telemetry, and to be as close to 100% student research and developed as possible; we will make everything we possibly can ourselves, rather than buy it off the shelf.
Designing and building the hybrid rocket propulsion system and implementing these new innovative systems poses considerable challenges for the team’s budget. The UCF Student Government Association financially supports us by matching the money the team is able to raise through fundraising and donations, up to half of the approved budget, so your donations will be doubled for our budget! Historically, the largest contributions to the budget was from the extremely generous contributions of team members and their friends and family. This community of supporters is responsible for the amazing experience that so many students were able to participate in. SEDS-UCF & AIAA-UCF would like to ask for your support in getting our team and rocket out to the competition in New Mexico! This is a truly amazing experience for young students and we will be forever grateful if you can help us achieve these amazing goals. Go Knights!
