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The first team meeting at Miguel's apartment. (2018)
2018
2018
Alpha Astrum was founded in 2018 with the goal of participating in the NASA University Student Launch Initiative competition. A couple of undergrad mechanical engineering students named Miguel Torres and Roberto Rodríguez had a vision of forming their own student rocket club and going to Huntsville, Alabama to put El Colegio on everyone's mind. They started recruiting other students and soon had around 10 people in the first-ever Student Launch Team Meeting.
During those first few months, the team's main focus was setting the foundations for the organization. They established meeting schedules, rules, fundraisers and most important of all: the team's name. They first contemplated using the organization's name as the team name (Alpha Astrum) but later discussed that they planned on including other projects in the organization so a separate name was necessary for the rocket-building team. Finally after many iterations they settled on Dynamic Rocket for Airborne-Controlled Operations, which formed the nice-sounding acronym D.R.A.C.O.
2019
2019
This year had so much going on that we decided to divide it into two sections: Spring 2019 and Fall 2019.
Spring 2019
The Spring 2019 semester began with the wonderful news that we had been awarded a donation of chairs, tables, and office equipment by Banco Popular. The tricky part was getting to the donation itself, which was located in Guaynabo, on the other side of the island from where the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez is located. Two members, Harry and Rex, met up at Guaynabo and together with a rental moving truck, also donated by Popular, were able to get everything on the truck to move them the next day to Mayagüez.
Once in Mayagüez, they met on the HQ of a startup named Instarz, where they were offered a temporary workshop. The team established their new work location with their donated chairs and tables and finally felt like they were making progress. The research on rockets and payloads continued on their way to their first Student Launch Competition ever.
Spring 2019 was also the semester when the LOXODON-1 Project was started. This project was started with the aim of designing and building the first liquid-propellant rocket engine made in Puerto Rico.
Fall 2019
Fall 2019 was the first semester that the DRACO team would compete in Student Launch. In order to do this, Miguel Torres had to obtain his National Association of Rocketry (NAR) level 2 certification, which was needed to purchase the rocket motors for the competition. During the summer, Miguel manufactured a level 2 rocket from scratch using blue tubes, fiberglass, and aluminum parts. He attempted to launch multiple times (2) until finally, on his last motor, he launched and recovered the rocket close to Arecibo, PR. (Location below.)
Later in August, NASA released the Rules Handbook for Student Launch and the DRACO team got together and discussed them in detail. They brainstormed ideas and design parameters as well as researched possible payloads. The team developed a proposal and turned it in. After some weeks, NASA sent the team an official message, DRACO was officially a competitor at the University Student Launch Initiative 2019-2020 competition!
The earthquake was felt throughout the entire island.
2020
2020
Early 2020 was especially hard for Alpha Astrum and Puerto Rico as a whole. On January 6th, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocked the island and caused a lot of damage to houses and buildings. The power was lost in most of the southwest and multiple people lost their homes because they either crumbled or had major damage and could not be lived in. Despite all of this, we decided to help those in dire need by distributing general supplies and food to the most affected communities in the south.
Nevertheless, DRACO was still in the competition and had to keep pushing forward. The workshop where most of the full-scale was being built closed for three weeks and this severely impacted their schedule. Furthermore, January 2020 was the month where COVID-19 was really starting to make headlines and the teams raced to finish the rocket before the deadline and before any major lockdowns were put in place.
Sadly, the DRACO team was not able to complete the rocket on time for the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) Deadline in March. This was a huge blow to an already tired and frustrated team. They had worked for weeks on end after classes and in a workshop that was 30 minutes away. To top it all over, because the team did not meet the FRR deadline, they were officially disqualified by NASA.
There was a silver lining though, come June 2020, DRACO was recognized with 3 awards by NASA. They received FIRST PLACE in the Project Review category for their innovative technical reports. They also received a FIRST PLACE for the Rookie team of the year, given this was their first time competing. The third award came as a SECOND PLACE in STEM Engagement for their efforts in impacting the community in science-related activities throughout the year.
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