I convinced my son’s Scouting America Troop (formerly "Boy Scouts of America") to do a model rocket telemetry project. The goal is to find the SMALLEST form factor of little chips and sensors that we can mount to a cardboard-tube Estes model rocket.

  • Arduino board (the brains)
  • Cellular radio (so we can receive onboard data near-real-time before, during, and after the launch)
  • GPS (so we can find it when the wind carries it away -- and also see how high it goes)
  • 64g or higher accelerometer (I’ve read 32g accelerometers get pegged during launch)
  • Battery mount (hopefully it can run on 1 or 2 button cells)

Optional sensors:

  • ambient pressure
  • ambient temperature
  • ambient humidity
  • ambient air quality

Waveshare has a combo ESP32, Cellular, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Camera unit for $48 (their website) $60 (Amazon)

Accelerometer:

Ambient Pressure, Temperature, Humidity, and Air Quality:

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Archiving just in case I need a fallback:

LTE sensors:

GPS: