What is HPRC?
The High Power Rocketry Club (HPRC) is a student organization at WPI that competes in high power rocketry competitions. This year, we are competing in the Intercollegiate Rocketry Engineering Competition (IREC). Previously, our team competed in NASA's University Launch Initiative (USLI). We also take a large portion of our time in the club to educate members through club-run workshops on topics such as rocketry, robotics, manufacturing, computer aided design and much more. If you are a WPI student who is interested in joining the team, please send our executive board an email by clicking here.
This Year's Competition
The Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) is the world's largest university rocket engineering competition held each year as a part of the Spaceport America Cup. College teams compete with rockets built to reach a target altitude of either 10,000 or 30,000 feet and a payload weighing 8.8 pounds. Teams are judged on written technical reports, quality of final design, payload functionality, rocket performance, and presentations to judges while at the competition. For the 2023 competition, our team will be competing in the 10,000 ft COTS category and building a robotic payload.
Current Progress
The team is hard at work preparing for IREC 2023! Over the first semester of the school year, the team designed all parts of the rocket and payload and began work on the custom electronics and software for every system. This year, the payload will be a quadcopter designed to drop cubes containing sensors to collect weather-related data. Our team also completed our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in October.
In the second semester of the school year, WPI HPRC is manufacturing and testing all components of our rocket and payload. Additionally, the team held our Critical Design Review (CDR) and will be performing a test launch of our 2021 rocket, Sirius, at the St. Albans launch site to test several important systems.
Join the Team!
Open to all WPI students.
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Sponsors
HPRC is made possible by donations from our generous sponsors.
Donate
Any contributions appreciated. Click on the button below to donate through the WPI donation page.