Rocket Propulsion Lab - Daedalus
Structures work for a student rocket targeting roughly 4,000 ft apogee
I worked on structures for Daedalus, a student rocket project where stiffness, mass, assembly tolerance, and aerodynamic stability all had to be balanced together. I built the structural CAD, checked tolerances, and used quick FEA passes before fabrication and validation.
Every structural change shifted mass distribution and therefore changed stability and integration behavior elsewhere in the vehicle.
Tolerance choices needed to support repeatable assembly without adding unnecessary mass or overcomplicating fabrication.
I used CAD and tolerance analysis early to expose assembly problems before fabrication rather than finding them during integration.
Quick FEA passes and OpenRocket trade studies helped narrow concepts before the team committed time and material.
I supported propulsion and recovery validation with instrumentation and data collection tied back to design assumptions.
Trade studies on stability margin, drag, and mass distribution informed structural decisions before fabrication.
The work improved how I make structural decisions in the context of the whole system instead of optimizing one part in isolation.
It also built stronger habits around pre-fabrication checks, assembly realism, and design-for-test thinking.
Tighten correlation between structural assumptions and pre-test evidence earlier in the design cycle.