On Thursday, March 6th, the Lower Sixth Engineering Team, consisting of five students, successfully launched their mini-satellite at Westcott Venture Park in Aylesbury. The team participated in CanSat, an ESA and STEM Learning initiative that challenges students to design and build a mini-satellite that fits inside a soft drink can.
This year, the team developed a CanSat designed to measure anomalies in magnetic field strength, which can impact bird migration patterns, titled Measuring Anomalous Geomagnetic Path Impacts (MAG-PI). Despite concerns over high winds potentially delaying the launch, the team successfully deployed their CanSat and obtained a complete dataset. After its descent, they also recovered their CanSat, marking the launch as a resounding success.
After months of hard work—including writing two engineering reports and successfully completing the regional launch—the team earned their Industrial Cadet Silver Award. They also achieve the distinction of becoming the latest newly minted FHS rocket scientists!
Here is what Polina had to say about the day:
“Energy was high and we were all buzzing as we arrived in Aylesbury for our launch day. Luckily, we were well prepared and didn’t have much to stress over when it came to the final checks. There was a slight moment of panic in which we thought that our data reception no longer worked, but we quickly realised that it was other groups’ frequencies disrupting it and that everything was going as planned. Our rocket was one of the first to be launched with everything going as well as it could’ve. We received data all throughout its flight and (at least to us) it had one of the longest flight paths out of all the cans. After a brief slow-motion recreation of Forest Gump’s running scene, we were finally able to collect our can, which was buried in the field’s high grass. To our surprise, it was still intact. All throughout the day, we were filled with lots of excitement and a sense of immense gratitude that we were given this amazing opportunity. It was incredibly rewarding to see our months of effort come together so wonderfully.”
Congratulations to Bea, Niamh, Polina, Emily and Dori!
Dr MacTavish
Head of Physics at FHRP
