Rocket Deployed Drone - Senior Design Team Project

My senior design team competed in the Argonia Cup. A competition to see who could send a rocket to 8000+ ft and return a golfball to a target on the ground. I was on the payload specific sub team, tasked with designing the method by which the golfball would be returned.

We started with concpet selection, drawing our ideas and then ranking them in terms of viablity. An example of the folding drone drawn by one of our team members:

Then we compiled the viablity into a chart and presented to team:

The winning concept was a folding quadcopter and I was tasked with designing the main body to hold the battery and folding arms. In SolidWorks, I designed the lower unit making sure wiring paths were cohesive and the battery remained accessible.

We then put all the parts in an assembly to make sure they fit and functioned properly with eachother.

Parts were then printed out and assembled. The electronics subteam added the brains, wiring, and motors. Testing began and the homing fearture worked, just not with the range we needed.

Here is the drone being folded and placed inside the rocket on competition day:

While the drone was successfully ejected from the rocket, the homing function did not kick in fast enought and the drone fell to the ground with only minimal damage to one arm:

We ended up placing forth out of almost 20 teams anyway.