model-rocketry

This is a repository for model rocketry projects. Currently, there is only one: an altimeter and accelerometer based on commonly-available parts.

Altimeter and Accelerometer

If you've ever launched a model rocket, you've probably also wondered how high it went, how fast it traveled, and what sort of g-forces it experienced. There are some commercially-available altimeters and accelerometers, but I wanted to make my own.

The project website has all the information you're probably looking for:

• Hardware assembly, software installation, and usage instructions
• Software design considerations, in particular power-saving techniques / optimizations
• Hardware selection considerations, as well as tradeoffs and ideas for improvement
• Sample output, in the form of graphs generated from actual launches
• Photos and discussion of the types of rockets this has been tested on

High-Level Instructions

If you don't want to read the full instructions, the short version is:

1. Install micropython on an ESP32s3.
2. Copy the files in the pico folder to that computer and connect it to a BMP390 pressure sensor, ICM20649 accelerometer, and A27 battery.
3. Put the device in a model rocket and launch it.
4. Connect the device to a USB power source (battery, computer, car, etc.) and hold the boot button until the blue LED stays lit.
5. Connect to the ESP32s3's wifi network and copy the folders (via FTP) in the data folder -- they should be numbered, i.e. 1, 2...
6. Copy the files in the tera folder to the directory that you copied the numbered folders to.
7. Install the dependencies: Python, and (via pip) bokeh, more-itertools, and whittaker-eilers
8. Run the main-icm20649-bmp390.py script.
9. HTML files with the recorded data will be generated in the current directory.