Tripoli L1 Rocket
This project explores how a highly constrained Level 1 certification kit can be pushed through simulation-driven design, custom fabrication, and finishing choices. The rocket flew twice to ~2,000 ft and was safely recovered, earning my Tripoli Level 1 certification.
Project Type
Independent College Project
Date
Jan. 2024 - March 2025
Progress
Completed
As part of a design team that only researches, designs, builds, and launches rockets, I very much enjoy making them. However with this one, I knew it would be a struggle to find the motivation to build it because there wasn’t much flexibility on what we could do or how we could built it. So, I decided I would push wherever I could on the boundaries of the building instructions and its kit to make something that I have some fun with.
The kit came with very few pieces: a nose cone, a body tube, 3 motor center rings, a motor casing, some hardware for a reusable to parachute to attach, and a thin sheet of wood for making fins. The fins were the first area where some customization could be achieved. In the standard L1 build guide I was provided, we were suggested to make square fins of a particular shape, but through the use of Open Rocket, I was able to calculate the most swept fins I could make with the wood I was given. In actuality, this sweep at the speed this rocket would be flying would have little to no effect on its actual flight. As another added detail, I took the time to learn how to use a router table to bevel the edges. Once the fins were done, the next area of customization wouldn’t come until after the rocket was completely built, painting.
I had painted two of OLVT’s rockets in the past, Skipper 1D and 1E, both of which have dedicated pages on their paint job on the OLVT Sub-Gallery that can be accessed from the Portfolio Gallery. Because this rocket was purely my own, I wanted to give hand painting details a try, something I was not confident enough to do on a rocket worked on by over 80 people. Like 1D and 1E, I started in ProCreate drafting potential designs until I landed on a blue, gold, black, and white theme I called “Coast to Coast”. I called it this because I got inspiration for the blue and gold from a chandelier in a church in Charleston, South Carolina as well as the pyrite flakes floating in the blue pacific ocean in Coronado Island, California. The final design I went with involved a blue, gold, and white pattern on the fins meant to look like a Coronado beach, a black mostly black body tube to contrast the fins, and a white nose cone to call back to the white on the fins. Also on the body tube are the logos for OLVT, Virginia Tech, and the American flag filled in with blue and gold.
Since then, this rocket has since flown twice to roughly 2000 ft in Culpepper, Virginia and been safely recovered, thus earning me my level 1 Tripoli certification.
