UAH CanSat teams place 1-2-3 in Astronautical Society competition

HUNTSVILLE — Three CanSat teams from the University of Alabama in Huntsville Space Hardware Club placed first, second and third in the nation in an American Astronautical Society-sponsored international competition.

Team Spaceshot was first, Team Star Saber finished second and Team Highwire was third in the aerospace design and production event. In the overall rankings, Team Spaceshot took eighth, Team Star Saber was 13^th and Team Highwire finished 16^th.

The UAH teams were composed mostly of freshmen and sophomores, and it was the first CanSat experience for everyone.

CanSat is an annual student design-build-launch competition open to teams from universities and colleges. They design a space-capable CanSat with payload that is launched from a rocket and descends with a parachute. The CanSat must survive the launch and deployment. Launches are recorded by an onboard video camera.

Teams follow requirements during the development and construction phases and then compete at the end of two semesters to determine the winners. This year’s competition was June 9-12 at Virginia Tech.

“As a team lead, I learned that it is important to create relationships among team members and boost motivation to make progress on the project,” said Haylee Winter of Team Spaceshot. “As an electrical team member, I learned that it is important to jump in and learn as much as you can because even if you come across something that doesn’t seem relevant, it will likely come up later in the project.”

Team Star Saber’s Ocean Bowling, an aerospace engineering freshman from Louisville,  learned about perseverance.

“The main takeaway I got from this was that it takes teamwork, time and commitment to make something even as small as the CanSat,” Bowling said.

Samantha Quartuccio, a Team Highwire lead a freshman in computer engineering from Charleston, S.C., said the CanSat experience has been one of the most rewarding for her so far.

“Not many universities have such thorough engineering programs for freshman to experience, especially by themselves,” Quartuccio said. “It was really satisfying to see our ideas translate from paper into reality at the lab, and I can’t wait to get back in the labs and apply what we’ve learned over the course of the past year.”

Team Spaceshot’s Aidan Barton, an electrical engineering sophomore from Spring Hill, learned about project dedication.

“We could have spent more time working on the CanSat leading into the last month of competition,” Barton said. “Failing to do so created a massive crunch period for a few weeks before competition, which was especially difficult because many team members were also working on internships.”

Niko Duffy, Team Highwire’s team lead and a systems engineering freshman from Huntsville, said learning how to effectively communicate and integrate different ideas was a challenge.

“Although we struggled with integrating our parts in the beginning, in the end we had very good communication and succeeded because of it,” Duffy said.

All the teams overcame challenges getting over technical hurdles, time management requirements and the need for teamwork, said Tristan Carter, the SHC’s AutoSat program manager.

“By technical hurdles, I mean all the research and learning that goes into being able to make a working CanSat,” Carter said. Circuit design, new programming languages and software, hardware integration, fiberglass lay-up, intricacies associated with 3D printing and numerous more that are required to have a functional CanSat.

“As for time management, being able to balance classes, CanSat and jobs is incredibly challenging, especially when you are trying to put your best foot forward. The biggest takeaway every year ends up being how to manage your time in a more efficient manner.”

The teams are already looking forward to 2023, Carter said.

“Many of this year’s CanSaters are excited and poised to hit next year’s competition with all of their experience and lessons learned from this year,” he said.