And so, our brave heros of the UCI Cansat team trek onward through the treacherous week 9 with sights on finalizing the sensors to be implemented. The looming pressure from the Fall Design Review on the horizon has only strengthen our protagonists team bond. A messenger from the house of telemetry has arrived with the following news:

Some developments for telemetry:

1. Our sensor layout includes a pressure sensors to measure static and stagnation pressure upon descent from from the rocket. Four pressure sensors will be evenly placed around the circumference of the heat shield to measure static pressure. With static pressure known, we can know the elevation the probe is at.

2. We have also chosen an accelerometer to measure velocity and tilt. To verify the reliability of the velocity from the accelerometer, we are going to test a configuration with a pressure sensor be placed at the nose to measure the stagnation pressure. Stagnation and static pressure reading can also be used to obtain velocity.

3. Additionally, on temperature data requirement is also checked off since the pressure sensors also read temperature.

4. Rough SolidWorks models of the sensors we also made to fit onto a full CAD model of the cansat.

Future: We have just received our pressure sensors, GPS, Xbees, and Arduino Nanos. Current efforts will be to configure the Xbees to transmit/receive sensor data from the arduino to a ground station (laptop).

(The attached figure is of the Adafruit BMP 280 Pressure/Temperature sensor)

– Jose Loli
CANSAT Telemetry