Project REIGN was Old Dominion University’s first ever entry into the International Rocketry Engineering Competition, competing in the 10,000 ft COTS category. The team placed ultimately placed 15th out of 170 accepted teams. The vehicle achieved a successful test flight to 9,800 ft, within 2% of simulated apogee, and reached 9,650 ft at competition. Despite a partial parachute deployment, the rocket was recovered with only minor damage, demonstrating the robustness of the structural and recovery design under off-nominal conditions. 

As Project Manager, I led a team of 20 students through the full lifecycle of the project, including system architecture, design reviews, manufacturing, testing, and launch operations. I was directly involved in all major subsystems, contributing to fin structural validation through FEA, developing in-house tools to approximate fin flutter margins, and performing iterative vehicle optimization using OpenRocket and CFD-informed design adjustments. A configurable payload system was implemented to allow fine control over mass properties and enable tuning of apogee to meet competition requirements.

The project operated under significant budget and material constraints, with approximately $3,500 allocated for vehicle design and construction and a total program budget of ~$15,000 including travel and test operations-substantially lower than many comparable university teams. These limitations required rigorous trade-offs between performance, weight, and manufacturability, driving decisions such as minimizing structural mass, optimizing motor selection, and prioritizing cost-effective materials and fabrication methods. Critical systems were selectively overdesigned to improve survivability, which proved effective during recovery despite a high-speed descent event with the rocket landing at roughly 70 mph. Through this process, the team developed a practical understanding of large-scale (L3-class) rocket integration, including subsystem coupling, failure modes, and validation strategies.