Academics are awesome, but what's even more fun for me is applying what I've learned in classes to practical projects with people who have similar goals.
STAR is a rocketry club focused on building rockets every year for competitions. In the past, we've used plenty of solid motors, but this upcoming year, we hope to launch a pressure-fed liquid engine (Fuel: Ethanol, Oxidizer: Liquid Oxygen) rocket at the FAR-OUT competition. On STAR, I am the vice president and a liquid rocket engineer. As the vice president, I am in charge of the overall club, launches, technical reports, and communication with sponsors, UC Berkeley, and many other organizations. On the technical side, I help ensure the rocket lands softly in a re-flyable and mostly undamaged state as part of recovery. I've developed a custom simulation to measure the shock loading and descent velocity of the rocket. I've also done a lot of work on our airframe subteam, helping with the overall rocket CAD, determining ballast sizes for our solid demonstrators, and more. Due to building a liquid engine, I've worked on the propulsion system quite a bit, helping with leak proofing, flow testing, machining, and constructing the feed system and GSE. Along the way, I've learned a lot about rockets and engineering and have been teaching new members while meeting some awesome people!
STAC is a large team with 5 separate engineering projects going on at the same time. Each project is a small team, and my team is the Lunar Hopper team. As the Mechanical Lead on the project, I lead the development of a robot that "hops" around various terrains. Many lunar missions and other extraterrestrial missions have struggled to properly map the surface of bodies in our solar system due to the risk of getting stuck in craters. The 3-legged robot, named Leapfrog, compresses carbon-fiber cables using a one-way bearing. When released, the cables push down and cause the hopper to jump. The legs can reposition the angle of the robot to allow it to move in different directions. The software and hardware in the head of the robot allow it to create a 3-dimensional map of the surrounding area. Ultimately, we hope to build a cheap, easily replicable that can be used to explore regions on the Moon and beyond.