Space Grant Consortium - University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Student Rocket Design Competition
“Drew and Crew”
Drew Falkenburg, Wesley Larrabee, Caleb Varner
Milwaukee School of Engineering
Milwaukee, WI
Our Story
A mutual friend of all of us, Steve Bothe, had competed in the WSGC’s rocket completion for
two years prior to our entry. Not being members of the team, we watched and sometimes helped Steve
with his rockets. We were all interested in how rockets worked and the design problem each year. With
a basic understanding of the components and basic idea of how a rocket works we decided to start our
own rocket team.
At the beginning of last school year the email came out announcing the WSGC rocket design
and build competition. Drew again talked to Caleb and Wes to make sure we all were going to go
through with it. We decided to go for it. After getting the papers in order and attending the first
meeting we ordered our parts. As a safety we had Steve Bothe, our self proclaimed advisor and now
MSOE alumni, present as to make sure that one we order everything we need and two that we order the
right sizes of everything.
Roughly two weeks later our parts arrived. This was particularly interesting as Drew tried to
explain why we were receiving a package for “Public Missiles Unlimited” at the MSOE Residence
Halls. It was that very next weekend that our rocket started to take shape. Early Saturday morning
began with a trip to ACE Hardware, which lead to a sponsorship by them, to get the miscellaneous nuts
and bolts needed for the rocket. Within the next few hours we worked to build our rocket. We had
made all basic design decisions prior and so our only task was to get the framework together. After a
few bottles of epoxy and several mounds of sawdust combined with plastic shavings our rocket looked
like a rocket. Around nine at night we called it quits and started to clean up. Unfortunately, due to our
busy schedules we were not able to get together for several weeks.
Realizing that the competition was a week away we decided that it was in our best interest to
finish our rocket. We got together yet again to finish the building of our rocket and to tweak it as
necessary. After many trips to the Science building on MSOE’s campus we had our rocket completely
built. All it needed was some paint. It was quite a task to try to find a spot to paint our rocket in
downtown Milwaukee, but the next day we managed. At that point our rocket was completed. And just
in time, the next day was our design presentation.
Our presentation went well. We had a well planned out design and conveyed our ideas
effectively. We were also well prepared for the day of the launch. Day of all we had to do we tie our
parachute on and wire up our electronics. Our first launch went off so well in fact that after we had our
data analyzed we did a second launch. It did not count for the competition, but we wanted to just for
fun. All of us enjoyed the competition so much that we will be competing again next year.
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