To the moon...

8 months ago I wanted to build cars for a living. I wanted to work for a small, high-end car company that produced rockets disguised as cars. That was 8 months ago. Now I want to build rockets. No disguises.

A rocket competition changed it all. 

Here's the story: I was perusing the halls of the Crabtree building after class. I stumbled upon a bulletin board with poorly designed flyers sprawling across it. One of them was for a rocket competition. I was intrigued. Rockets. 

The competition was a team event so I recruited Conner and Payden to do it with me. Each team would design and build a rocket around the same motor. The goal: maximum altitude. Another goal: recover the rocket. We went to work. Correction: I went to work. Conner and Payden were busy with chemistry/girls/rock climbing. So I designed the rocket. Then I built it.

As the launch day approached I was lowkey stoked out of my mind. Well, they canceled it. So we waited for the next launch day. It approached and I was lowkey stoked out of my mind. Well, they canceled it. They moved the launch to the next month. In the meantime, we decided to upgrade our rocket fins. Wood to carbon fiber. Yeah. Carbon fiber. We were gonna win this business. Finally the launch day came. It wasn't canceled.

We met up with all the other BYU rocketeers that morning to go over some last minute specifics. And to get our free t-shirts. Yes. Then we drove an hour out to the launch site. We were launching at a UROC event. They were the real deal. They had an arsenal of missile-sized rockets. The almost-friendly UROC folks checked in our rockets and had us load them on the launch pads. Then the time came for the launch. 

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

gone.

Our rocket went sideways. Not ideal. Check out the video.

We searched and searched. Never found it. We realized that we doomed ourselves from the beginning when we named our rocket Elijah's Chariot. It's not like they found his chariot after he left. It didn't float back to earth with a bright red parachute. Only 2 teams out of 5 recovered their rockets. And only 1 had an altimeter reading. The thing is, their rocket also went sideways. No way did it go as high as some of the other BYU rockets. But they recovered it and have the only altimeter reading. Technically they should win. A winner has yet to be announced though. Sort of anticlimactic. Well, at least I got some decent pictures.

The search pose

The post-search pose

Instead of finding their rocket, one group found a balloon and a golf club.