Jordan Rocketry Team Fundraising Campaign
Jordan Rocketry Team is based in Durham, N.C. at Charles E. Jordan High School. Jordan High is a traditional public school with a rapidly growing student population. The Jordan Rocketry Team designs, builds, and flies rockets and their payloads for two competitions per school year. Working on these projects is an educational way to have fun and learn about rocketry and electronics. Every year, the team captures the attention of many people who otherwise would not have considered engineering or rocketry to be interesting. However, these competitions require a lot of funds. Any donations made to Jordan Rocketry will go to buying parts, tools, and travel for our competitions.
Low-Power Rocketry
Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) is a low-power challenge to build a unique rocket that houses eggs. The competition is to reach as close to a specific altitude as possible while maintaining a certain flight time and preventing the eggs from breaking. Our team splits into two or more groups to work on these rockets which compete separately. If any of the groups place in the top 100 teams by score, they are invited to finals, where teams fly in the same conditions for the same altitude. Those who place in the top 25 are invited to NASA Student Launch (NASA SL), and the number one team is invited to the International Rocketry Competition.
High-Power Rocketry
The Jordan Rocketry Team has participated in NASA SL multiple times, most recently during the 2015-2016 school year. That year, we built a rocket that flew one mile high and harbored two payloads. The main payload existed to control the spin of the rocket. It used a gyroscope to detect spinning and a motor to spin a large internal flywheel in the same direction as the roll, creating torque and ending the spin. We were even able to use this to perform specific maneuvers such as a 90 degree turn. Camera footage from the rocket is visible on our YouTube Page. The other payload was a balloon that was supposed to rise and allow the rocket to be easily recoverable. It is not known whether this worked because on the flight the rocket was dragged by wind and the balloons not found. The NASA SL process requires the construction of a subscale rocket to prove the design is stable, as well as multiple check-ins in the form of long documents such as the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and Critical Design Review (CDR). Jordan did not qualify for NASA SL during the 2016-2017 school year. During the 2016-2017 school year, we worked on Battle of the Rockets. This required the construction of a large rocket that carried a planetary lander. The lander had to be encased within the rocket, which was required to fly to 1,000 feet. At 600 feet, the lander deployed, self-uprighted, and took pictures and sensor data, sending it back in real-time to a ground station. We came up with an ingenious design that utilized the properties of a tube to create a lander that both fit inside the rocket and was able to upright simply by opening up. At Battle of the Rockets finals, we competed with a number of top high schools and universities including Northwestern, Northeastern, and Case Western. In 2017, we won first place in Battle of the Rockets.
The Future
Looking ahead, we are running out of funds. We need money for travel and parts, without it we could not function as a team. We ask that you give us funds so that we can keep educating, teaching kids the hands-on portion of rocketry. With more money, we can attract more members and perform better in our competitions. Some of the money will be dedicated to outreach towards local middle schools. On behalf of Jordan Rocketry, I would like to thank you for helping us continue to bring engineering and rocketry to high school. Finally, I would like to thank Mr. Dave Morey, who knows a lot about rocketry and dedicated much of his time to helping us design, build, program, and test our rocket, and Mr. Justin Finger, who, as a first-year physics teacher, agreed to sponsor our club when Dr. LaCosse, our old sponsor, left Jordan.