On Sunday, November 13th, SOAR held its first prototyping meeting for NSL 2017 in the Design For X lab on campus. The goal of these prototyping meetings is to use lab time develop a functional prototype that will eventually be developed into the final rocket — sort of like a rough draft. In this particular meeting, we worked primarily on the landing module, including:
Cutting, sanding, and shaping legs for the lander
Cutting and fitting a place to mount the motors that control the steering system
Beginning to design and 3D print necessary parts
Other miscellaneous small tasks
The NSL Prototyping team works in the lab to cut the lander legs out of a piece of rocket tubing and shape them to the desired tapered fit.