DIY Cubesat

This was my precursor project to Strato Lab One as originally I wanted to launch a CubeSat. So I went on the journey of building my own DIY CubeSat from only off the shelf parts. I built a magnetorquer system and even got it to reorient it's attitude using the Earth's magnetic field. I have a clip of it doing so shown above.

But while working on I soon realized that I wouldn't be able to launch it to low earth orbit or at least not in my time as being a highschooler. So I asked myself "what is the closest I could get?" that was a high altitude weather balloon. So I figured I would break apart the components of the CubeSat and incorporate them into a high altitude weather balloon. Soon it became just a side payload not the main payload which was the high altitude bacteria sampling mechanism I built. But it was still fun getting the demo version working on the CubeSat. I cannot tell you the amount of magnetorquers I burnt out running excessive about of current through them. I can still remember the horrible smell of burnt wire insulation and probably so can the rest of the students with in the vicinity of the demos I showed friends.

At the time I had a math tutor Al Davies who I turned really more into a mentor less of a math tutor. I brought my CubeSat demo to show him it and I tested the magnetorquer to failure with him there. Suddenly the facility filled with the smell of burnt wire insulation. I don't recall actually doing much Math tutoring with Al Davies at all. Into our second tutoring session I decided that I wanted to figure out how Johannes Kepler used Tycho Brahe's data to figure out that Mars' orbit is an ellipse. But rather I wanted to figure out the solution by reasoning and trying to figure out how he would have come up with the solution. We spent nearly a year working on it, taking styrofoam balls and placing them throughout the facility pretending they were Mars the Earth and the sun. Then putting a point of the Earth and picturing that Tycho Brahe was there making observations. Al Davies was a great mentor and he added fuel to my fire where others may have stomped it out.