University of Calgary rocket team brings home first prize at international competition

The Student Organization for Aerospace Research team (SOAR) comprises 93 students from the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering.

In June, the team placed first in its division at the Intercollegiate Rocket Competition in New Mexico.

"We won our category in this competition," said Aiden Ballard, SOAR team captain.

"That means we were the best 10,000-foot hybrid (engine rocket) at the event, which is a good feeling even for me. In the grand scheme of things, I haven't been on this project that long. It's been three years in the making."

Ballard says the SOAR team comprises seven or so sub-teams, each of which handles different aspects of the build.

"We have avionics hardware, avionics software, there's a propulsion team, there's an airframe team, there's a manufacturing team, there's a simulation team for making sure our flight goes as we expect," Ballard said.

"Any one component of this rocket is enough to make our heads spin. Each of these sub-teams are like 10 or 15 people responsible for only one part of the rocket and even then, it takes years of design and testing and manufacturing."

There were upward of 6,000 people from around the world competing and Ballard says there was a lot of camaraderie amongst teams.

"We had valve problems down there. We had a few teams come to us with some spare parts that they had," he said.

"We did the same for a team from Warsaw, Poland. They were having some issues with their altimeters that we offered to try and help fix.

Everyone just wants to see each other fly, there's a competitive spirit but at the end of the day, would you rather get a few more points or see another rocket fly?

"That's an easy decision for most of us."

Mia Mrljic heads the propulsion team and has been on SOAR for three years.

She was impressed at being surrounded by people with the same passion.

"Oh man, I got to see the launch for the first time after three years of work," she said.

"It was awesome. ... I can't really describe it. Nothing compares to seeing three years of really hard work kind of work and go up there and definitely, it boosted my commitment to the field and I want to do this for a long time."

Mrljic says the team's rocket is a hybrid and the engine burns for just seven seconds to reach altitude.

"We have a liquid oxidizer and a solid fuel," she said.

"The reason for that is it's kind of more accessible to students, a bit safer, unlike liquid rockets, so a lot of student teams will do hybrids instead of liquids.

"Basically what happens is there is a fuel grain with a big bore in the middle, so we fill this and pressurize it to about 700 PSI and then we open a main engine valve, which releases the oxidizer into the fuel grain, which is the time we light igniters and propel the rocket."

Jesse Gerbrandt is the software lead on the project.

He says he was holding his breath at the launch and then experienced a moment of relief at lift-off.

"You're so nervous, you don't know if your stuff is going to work and then it finally goes up and it's like you can calm down and just enjoy it," he said.

Gerbrandt has eight on his team who are responsible for building a communication system to "talk" to the rocket and he says many other teams were interested in what they designed and built.

"I think we just had a really advanced and complex system compared to a lot of people," he said.

"A lot of stuff, people have never seen before. … On some of the simpler, basic rockets, you don't need as much electronics but something like this, you definitely do."

Jerry Wang is VP of manufacturing and was part of the crew at the rocket right before lift-off.

"We did the final arming of the rocket and running through the checklist, arming the rocket," he said.

"Then, just kind of taking it all in before walking away and clearing everything to watch it fly. It's an incredible feeling."

Wang and his crew build what they can at the university, which has an extensive machine shop.

"There's very little that we can't do in-house," he said.

"Just the big metal tubes that are a bit too long for us, one of our sponsors just took care of that for us but everything else is made by us here."

The team brought home a trophy and now has bragging rights until next year's competition.

"A lot of us definitely want to end up in aerospace and it'd be amazing to work on something commercial," Wang said.

"Like one of the large rocket companies. That's kind of the dream."

You can learn more about SOAR here.