Clark Aerospace

Emperor Penguin

Emperor Penguin was Clark College's submission to the International Rocketry Engineering Competition in 2024. The goal of this rocket was to hit an apogee of 10,000 ft with a 4.4 lb payload.

I was President and Propulsion Lead, and thus was responsible for administrating the club, formulating and creating the rocket motor, and doing the structural and aerodynamic calculations involved on the rocket.

Clark Aerospace President

As President, I lead relations with external organizations, all student outreach, and all administrative efforts.

I built relations with many organizations such as Portland State Aerospace Society, Oregon State Student Competition Rocket Team, Edmond's Aerospace, George Fox Aerospace, Washington State Aerospace, and Washington State Vancouver Aerospace. Cooperating with these clubs assisted with both parties, and was helpful to the club.

I managed the >$14,000 budget to ensure both the rocket club and drone club were able to function and cooperate while remaining underbudget. I regularly interacted with vice presidents and senior staff at Clark College to ensure that Clark Aerospace got sufficient funding, ordered things on time, had safety plans approved, etc.

Propulsion Lead

As the Propulsion Lead I formulated, designed, and tested the rocket motor that Clark Aerospace used at the International Rocketry Engineering Competition (IREC).

Clark College remains the only community college to compete at the IREC in the Student Researched and Developed rocket motor category.

The formula I made "SpaceBunny" was formulated with the assistance of college professors and industry advisors. It is an Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant such as is used in industry on vehicles such as NASA's SLS. The addition of bismuth trioxide was a development that I did that increased the impulse density of the propellant, increasing the total impulse in exchange for increased two phase flow decreasing specific impulse.

I performed calculations and FEA for the casing we used, and designed the rocket motor geometry that was used in the final motor.

I conducted testing for these motors, which after multiple tests resulted in a successful burn, and this same design was used for the rocket at the IREC.

In addition to my leadership positions, I worked on the structural design and analysis. I designed a large part of the vehicle in CAD, and conducted CFD, FEA, and hand calculations to validate the vehicle would successfully survive the flight.

My work in CFD and FEA changed the design vastly, and were validated after Emperor Penguin's successful flight.

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