CanSat Regional Competition

On 27 March, Fifth Form team “Protium” & Lower Eighth team “Azimuth” launched their CanSat rockets as part of the CanSat regional competition. On a very windy day, a brief lull in the wind gave them a launch window just long enough to launch both cans (although one was lost in a field and will be posted back). Neither team got through to UK final but had a fantastic day at the launch. Below are the teams’ reports.

Fifth Form Team Protium:

Kshitij Dubey, Manuel Fernandez Otero-Novas, Arie Sabbah, Josh Knox, Leo Maslaw, Alex Wan (on team but missed trip).

“We are Protium, a 5th form CanSat team competing in a nationwide competition. Our aim? To build a controllable, parasailing drone, capable of mapping out a 3D model of its surroundings, all inside a container no bigger than a soft drinks can. Being the newest CanSat team, we were relatively inexperienced in comparison to the senior team. However, thanks to the efforts of my teammates we were able to create a truly amazing piece of technology, and learn a huge amount through this experience. The CanSat itself is a delicate piece of technology, using a commercial flight controller to plan its flight, as well as a Rasberry Pi 4 to capture images through multiple cameras and generate a 3D model.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned on the launch day, due to an unfortunate short circuit on the 5v rail of the raspberry pi. However, we plan to improve our design in the L8th (two years time), and get it to at least plummet gracefully next time.

If you’re interested in learning more about our project, feel free to visit our website here (https://sites.google.com/stpaulsschool.org.uk/protium-cansat/protium)

I’d love to take all the credit for the work, but alas I didn’t do much… I’d like to thank the rest of my team for putting in some really good stuff. That includes Leo, Arié, Manuel, Josh and Kshitij. Well done guys, you’ve been amazing! Shoutout to Dr Patterson for being a really good mentor, helping us along the way.”

Alex, on behalf of Team Protium

Lower Eighth Team Azimuth:

Aneesh Punage, David Choi, William Standing, Michael Grimaldi

“The day of the regional launch was an event of success combined with many lessons to learn; celebration and failures hand in hand, providing us with an invaluable experience in the engineering space. Our can fused together intriguing mission objectives and compact, effective electronic design to create an exciting project that we were waiting with much anticipation to launch – the secondary objective was one like no other, suggested by William, which was cloud-seeding, simulated by table salt released into the air. Our final model consisted of temperature, humidity, air pressure, and altitude sensors integrated with an Arduino feather, connected to an SD card, in order to produce a satellite that would provide us with useful data regarding the trend in conditions as the height above the ground is changed. 

One of the greatest challenges we overcame on the day of the launch was the failure of our key sensor – the BME280. Despite efforts to replace it with a substitute BMP280, it was clear that we had almost no hope, until we all formulated the idea of estimating height and pressure using the working IMU and GPS systems, which was manifested by our electronics and engineering expert, Michael. Finally, we also required a replacement for our parachute which exceeded the size limit, which was securely and successfully installed by David. In spite of all of these failures, we showed resilience and perseverance, never giving up in the face of declining hope in order to achieve whatever success we could from the launch. 

When our satellite was launched, it was unfortunately blown by the wind to a location just outside the launch site, rendering it impossible to retrieve without permission from the owners of the next-door field. As a result, we are still awaiting the final outcome of our mission – has the data been collected or not? Only time will tell.

To end, I would like to say that the overall CanSat experience has been a crucial one in terms of developing as a person, problem-solver, as well as a member of a team, since it has taught us precious skills transferable to the workplace, from leadership and initiative to discipline and thinking outside of the box. The launch day, although not exactly having gone to plan, has left us feeling proud and accomplished, as well as in suspense as we wait to find out the final result.

Thank you.”

Aneesh, on behalf of team Azimuth