October 05, 2023 By Christiaan
YouAlberta is written by students for students.
Christiaan is in his third-year specialization in mathematics - computational science. He loves to learn the fascinating relationship between computers and mathematics. When not behind his computer coding or iPad doing math, he enjoys jumping out of planes and teaching others to do so.
Ever since I was young, I was utterly fascinated with rockets. I would look to the sky, find the moon and think of the colossal journey and intellectual might it must have taken to get humans all the way there.
As I grew older, I never lost my love for rockets but decided to pursue maths and computing science as it was something else that interested me. Then, one day on campus, I stumbled upon a STARR recruitment poster and immediately dropped everything I was doing. In hindsight, it was not the best idea as I had a midterm the next day, but learning more about the STARR club and how I could join was worth it.
I started as a general member of the Payload subteam that would design the scientific payload to be launched alongside our sounding rocket. I helped design the electrical components that would take sensor measurements during the rocket's flight and take air samples while the rocket came safely back to Earth. I then moved on to take the position of vice president external, where I can now share our love of rocketry with potential new members like you and new exciting companies.
STARR is an interdisciplinary club that always has a demand for almost any degree you could think of. Through this diversity, I've met many new amazing people in sciences, engineering, and, yes, even arts and business. Whether it's joking about designing a new rocket with material never used before (you will just have to join to see) or laughing over a drink at Deweys, the friendships I've made and continue to make at STARR are ones to cherish that I hope you can also come to experience with the team. We have connections with numerous companies that give us monetary and hardware support. In joining, you gain access to these connections.
Joining a club has small downsides; however, I believe they are fully worth it. But understand, to a certain level, there is some time commitment you are handing over when you could be studying or resting instead. However, at STARR, we fully believe school comes first and are always willing to change assigned work depending on upcoming assignments or tests. Designing rockets isn't easy, and the whole team is very passionate about the topic, but this leads to many troubles as we are taking on such a hard project, and learning to overcome such obstacles can be very challenging but also very rewarding.
At Launch Canada 2022, we won first for our payload design and just recently at Launch Canada 2023, we won second in our category and for the second year in a row, won first for our payload. With all these wins, STARR is now a fully developed club as we have proven ourselves as a competition-winning team in Canada. We are in the initial stages of designing our third rocket, Ringo III, which will, if all goes well, go up to four times as high as Ringo II. We are also refurbishing Ringo II so it can launch an AlbertaSat payload so they can test future hardware that might make it to orbit in the future.
Feel free to visit us to find more information and fill out an application form. Almost none of us started with any idea or experience designing rockets and related topics. We ask that you showcase a passion and willingness to learn as we design our next two rockets to go even higher than ever before. If you are as excited about rockets as we are, you would be a great fit!
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