UMass Rocket Team Fundraiser 2024-2025
Donation protected
Hello and thank you for visiting our GoFundMe page! We are the UMass Rocket Team, an engineering design team at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst competing in the annual NASA USLI competition. As a team, we design, build, and fly high-powered rockets with custom-created payloads to solve challenges specified by NASA every year.
Crowdfunding is essential to our team's yearly operations. Without the support from friends, family, and the general public, the team would not be able to afford the high-end materials and resources needed to have a successful rocket and payload, nor would the team be able to be as large as it is, as generous donations allow us to grow year after year, allowing more students to explore their passion in aerospace and rocketry.
To show our appreciation for your support to the team, the team has chosen to implement a donation reward for this fundraising season. Rewards include donors getting their name signed on the side of our full-scale rocket, team merchandise, and the chance to name one of our rockets this year! More details are included below.
We are forever thankful for your support and encouragement as we would not be able to do any of this without you!
About the Team
This year's team consists of 32 graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Members are split across a range of engineering disciplines including mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science.
Within the team, there are three subteams, each of which has a specific focus on the design of the rocket and payload.
- Structures - design and construct the overall body of the rocket. Structures members work on optimizing the material selection, aerodynamics, and engine motor of the vehicle.
- Recovery - log flight data and guarantee a safe descent and landing of the rocket, allowing it to be reusable for multiple flights. Recovery members work on tracking the rocket's flight, establishing strong connections between each vehicle section, and ensuring proper deployment of parachutes.
- Payload - create a specialized payload for the rocket to complete a unique set of challenges given by NASA. Payload members work on designing the hardware, software, and integration systems needed for the payload to achieve its mission.
As a dynamic group of undergraduate engineers, we are passionate about pushing the boundaries of aerospace design and exploration. Overall, the team is very close-knit with one another from not only our shared passion, but our constant collaboration with one another to create designs, test them, and solve problems when they arise. With a golden age of spaceflight and aerospace engineering on the horizon, we on the UMass Rocket Team hope to be part of the next generation of innovators who push what is possible and explore the unknown.
What is the NASA University Student Launch Initiative?
NASA University Student Launch Initiative (USLI) is the university division of NASA Student Launch, a 9-month-long challenge that tasks student teams from across the U.S. to design, build, test, and launch a high-powered rocket carrying a scientific or engineering payload. The competition is a hands-on, research-based, engineering activity and culminates each year with a final launch in Huntsville, Alabama home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Each year, NASA changes up the experimental payload teams tasked to design, test, and fly on their rocket. In previous years the goal has rovers that sample the landing site, 360-degree cameras that image where the rocket landed, and autonomous landers that simulate landing on a foreign planet. This year, NASA's challenge is to fly a flight capsule that transmits data on battery status, landing site temperature, crew orientation, landing time, and STEMnaut survivability to a NASA receiver upon landing.
NASA USLI is a great opportunity for college students to take the material they are learning in the classroom and apply it to something physical. NASA USLI also gives students direct experience with the engineering process and the standard milestones and reports that are used to validate designs and operations. These skills are essential to a successful career in engineering, so gaining familiarity with these deliverables gives students an upper hand when searching for a career post-graduation.
More information can be found at this link:
Donation Rewards
To show our appreciation for donors, the UMass Rocket Team has decided to implement tiers of rewards for donors' generous support to the team.
- $25 - To symbolize your support being what guides the team to success, the names of donors who give $25 or more will be signed on the fins of the full-scale rocket, the vehicle we bring down to Alabama for the culminating launch.
- $50 - Donors who pledge $50 or more will have the opportunity to submit a name suggestion for our full-scale vehicle. Name suggestions will then be voted on by the team and announced in March.
- $100 - To those who give $100 or more, donors will be able to receive a free custom UMass Rocket Team Remove Before Flight Tag. These items are staples of the aviation and aerospace industry, and the UMass Rocket Team is excited to share our new merch item with all of you!
NOTE - To receive the rewards for the $50 and $100 tiers, please make sure to contact the treasurer, Andrew Magner, through the option on this page with your name and tier so we can ensure you get the thanks you deserve.
While the rewards are set prices, any amount that you can give is truly appreciated, as even a dollar is enough to buy flight-critical hardware the team needs for success. We so gratefully thank you for your support in helping us fly high and straight towards our goals.
Organizer
Andrew Magner
Organizer
Amherst, MA