Right now for the team we decided that licensing was the most important thing to focus on currently so we can buy higher power motors. For our last launch we used a G motor in our 1/2 scale, which was the highest power motor we could buy without a license, but for anything past G you need a license to buy. Right now we're working on getting a level 1 license so we can buy H and I motors, but we're eventually going to have to get a level 2 license for our full scale rocket (I'm pretty sure our full scale rocket uses an L motor). Our plan for level 1 licensing is basically to order an H motor from someone connected to ROCC (the people who sponsored a night launch I went to a while ago), and have them deliver it to the field so we don't have to pay hazmat shipping (which is $$$), then put the H motor in our 1/2 scale and launch it with a licensed ROCC person there so that we can get certified. To get the license basically all we need is for our rocket to come back in one piece; for a level 2 license (which would be down the road), the rocket has to come back in one piece and follow the flight pattern that it's supposed to.

The launch is going to happen on Nov. 19th, and with the H motor we have picked out currently our simulation projects it to go 2000 ft. However, based off our last launch we know that our simulation is off (we have a higher drag coefficient than what's in the simulation), so our rocket will probably go around 1300-1500 ft. We're not going for height in this launch (too much height would break the waver; the height we're not supposed to go above for that time in that area for flight traffic reasons, and would get the ROCC in trouble), we're mostly just trying to prove that we can successfully launch a rocket with a high power motor successfully.

To get our 1/2 scale ready we're going to 3D print a new nosecone for it (our last one has a window in it for the camera we used to record the launch, which weakens the structure) and make some fillets for the fins (to make the rocket more aerodynamic and to strengthen the fins). In our next meeting on Tuesday we're also going to finish the launch pad that we started on last week (I wasn't there because I was supervising an engineering club project,so I don't have any more information than that).

To comment on something I posted on last time, I said that we would visit the STEAM forge in downtown Burlington, and we did, but it wasn't really anything too special. They have a few tools that we could possibly use in the future, but most of what they can do we can already do here at the maker hub in Elon. So, yeah we may or may not be visiting them again.

In our last meeting we had a discussion about the overall goals for the team in general and we ultimately decided that our current time line to begin working on the final scale next semester was much too ambitious, so we're going to work on perfecting our 1/2 scale, getting licensing, and getting more fundraising for this year and next year devote our time to building our full scale so we can enter the Sounding Rocket competition for the summer of 2018. We wanted to go this year because some of our members will be graduating after this year, but realistically this is only the second year of the team and we all can't devote the time that would be needed to move quickly from working on our 1/2 scale to our full scale in order to get ready for the competition this year. We're also in the process of looking for companies who would be willing to sponsor us (because funding is always an issue); I don't know how successful we'll be with that, but we're asking companies anyway.