Engineering students experiment with soda-sized Science!

Engineering students swapped their usual Welwyn Garden City surroundings for St Albans last week as they launched the CanSat rocket device created by students in the Engineering Resource Centre (ERC). 

The soda-can-sized objects were CanSats, sensor payloads that can be flown on small amateur rockets to altitudes of over two miles. A useful tool to teach students space technology, similar methods are also used in miniaturized satellites.

The project, which was part of a wider CanSat competition set by the European Space Agency which was overseen by Advanced Practitioner Richard Thomas and Senior Technician in Engineering Russell Rimington, tasked the Oaklands’ AIRBUS apprentices to design, build and eventually launch the helium-filled balloon, ensuring the devices are fitted with a recovery system, usually a parachute, to limit damage upon recovery and ensure the CanSat can be re-used in future projects.

Over the course of a number of launches of their CanSats, students quickly discovered the challenges of launching in adverse weather conditions, a reminder that the best ways to learn are by practising, learning from and adapting to changing scenarios.

Students were responsible for all aspects of the experiment, from integrating the components to launching, offering a unique opportunity to experience all of the phases of a real space expedition project. Students created a total of five devices, which were programmed to measure temperature, pressure and positioning as they descend back down to stable land, ready to be analysed back in the ERC.

Jack Burne, who is a Level 4 Space Engineering Technician student at Oaklands said:

It’s great to be able to put all of the skills and knowledge of what we’ve been learning at the college into a finished product and witness it come to life as part of our Final Major Project.