NAR Level 3

The National Association of Rocketry has 3 levels of certification, each progressively more difficult. The final level of certification allows you to fly motors up to 889600 Ns of impulse, which is easily suborbital.

I am the only student in the Pacific Northwest with a Level 3 Certification, and the first one at Portland State Aerospace Society in over a decade. 

To achieve this, I had to design a suitable rocket with structural and aerodynamic calculations, and have it approved by a L3 Certification Committee member. 

My rocket, "Pipe Dream", was explicitly designed to acquire as low of an altitude as I could feasibly attain while remaining structurally sound, compact, and under budget.

Due to how unique this design was, the structural and aerodynamic calculations were more intensive. Full CFD and FEA were done to ensure the structural integrity of the fins, body, and nosecone. More CFD was conducted to find the center of pressure to ensure the flat nosecone would not result in an unstable vehicle. 

A full python simulation with drag coefficients obtained from CFD was made and used, resulting in an apogee accurate within 6%.

"Pipe Dream" was flown at the BALLS rocketry event in the Black Rock desert, Nevada. This is one of the largest events of the year, and it successfully launched to 3,100', mach 0.8. 

Having successfully gotten my Level 3, I now mentor WSU-V as their Flier on Record for the International Rocketry Engineering Competition