Planet Arduino

What could be more thrilling than launching a complex rocket that you built yourself? For starters, launching it with literally anything better than the stock ignition system would be a step in the right direction. How about a briefcase full of fantastically fun overkill?

[FastEddy59] is in the middle of building a model rocket complete with a Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system to help with stabilization. Much to our delight, he’s designed an equally ambitious controller to spice up the launch sequence with security codes and a physical key. And what’s a launch controller without a giant emergency stop button to shut down everything? Incomplete, if you ask us.

Under the carbon fiber-wrapped acrylic hood, there’s an Arduino MEGA engine and an NRF24 LoRa module for transmission to the rocket. There’s even a DHT11 temperature sensor to verify that launch conditions are ideal. It’s still a work in progress with plenty of features to come, like fancier labels and plenty of launch-appropriate sound files for the hidden speaker. There’s a lot to this case, and [FastEddy59]’s video brief is ready and waiting on the pad after the break.

[FastEddy59] plans to hold the first launch in a few months, and we sincerely hope he outfits the rocket with a camera.

Although the thrill of launching rockets is usually found in their safe decent back to Earth, eventually you’re going to want some data from your flight. Everything from barometric pressure, GPS logging, and acceleration data is a useful thing to have, especially if you’re trying to perfect your craft. [zortness] over on reddit created a data logging board created especially for amateur rocketry, a fabulous piece of work that stands up to the rigors of going very fast and very high.

The design of the board is a shield for the Arduino Mega and Due, and comes with enough sensors for over-analyzing any rocket flight. The GPS logs location and altitude at 66Hz, two accelerometers measure up to 55 G. Barometric, temperature, and compass sensors tell the ground station all the data they would need to know over a ZigBee 900MHz radio link.

Because this is an Arduino, setting up flight events such as deploying the main and drogue chutes are as easy as uploading a bit of code. [zortness] built this for a 4″ diameter rocket, but he says it might fit in a 3″ rocket. We just can’t wait to see some videos of it in action.