TEAM

The development of the CanSat is almost a year long process including mechanical design, electronics design, PDR, CDR, manufacturing, assembly, integration and testing. For the team to work effectively and to accelerate the development, the team is divided into two sub divisions :-

Electronics and Software team
Mechanical team

The team puts around 5000+ man hours for the development of the CanSat.

Electronics and Software

The Electronics and Software sub-division is responsible for designing and manufacturing of Electronics and Ground Station of the CanSat. The CanSat contains electronics for sensing, actuating, receiving commands and transmitting data to the ground station. The ground station is responsible for issuing commands to the payload and displaying the received data graphically on GCS screen.

The main responsibilities of the team:

Select electronic components like sensors, microprocessor, camera, communication devices, antenna etc.
Interface and program different sensors and other components with micro-controller.
Prepare Flight Software States and develop algorithms.
Design and fabricate PCB .
Make GCS software for issuing commands and displaying data.
Manage power requirements.
Define communication protocols on board and with GCS.

Mechanical

The Mechanical sub-division team is responsible for making the physical structure and the various mechanisms of the CanSat. A CanSat basically consists of a cylindrical container and a science payload inside it; the container is supposed to protect the science payload during the flight (rocket launch and further flight till deployment) and the whole CanSat should be able to survive 15-30 Gs of force. Each year, the competition has a unique major mission objective, which the payload has to perform along with the container. For example, the major mission objective for the 2018-19 competition was about the use of auto-gyro descent control for the descent of the science payload from the container. Some of the major mission objectives of the past years' competitions were :-

Auto-gyro / passive helicopter descent control of the science payload,
Payload glider which glides in circular pattern,
Egg protection probe with heat shield, etc..

Along with this major objective, there are various limitations placed on the total CanSat weight, the descent rates, the dimensions of the container, and the total manufacturing cost, that are also mentioned in the Mission Guide, released by the competition officials for that particular year.

The mechanical team is responsible for :-

designing mechanisms required for fulfilling the major mission objective, along with other mechanisms such as parachute stowing and release mechanism, payload stowing and deployment mechanism, etc.,
having adequate knowledge of Material Science subject and its respective application as the CanSat has to be fabricated within the given weight and cost limits, and at the same time it has to be strong enough to survive 15-30 Gs of force,
fabricating the entire CanSat according to the mission requirements and within the given design limitations.

Thus, members of the mechanical design team of LaunchPad SJCE should be well-versed with Design, Material Science, Manufacturing/Fabrication, Modelling, Analysis, and should have good practical exposure and knowledge, along with technical know-how, for the success of our mission.