In a unique combination of Florida Tech’s Space Age heritage and future-facing innovation, university students and staff manufactured more than 150 3D-printed rockets in response to a request from newly elected state Rep. Brian Hodgers.
Understanding that freshman representatives often bring small gifts for their new colleagues as the legislative session begins, Hodgers wanted his gift to be something that would represent the Space Coast and instantly remind fellow House members where his district was located.
The rocket project, which Hodgers paid for, also allowed him to highlight one of his constituents – Florida Tech – and the timely issues of workforce availability in the state. He had recently taken an extensive tour of the Melbourne university and remembered its impressive students and their capabilities.
“I have a drawer full of thank you cards from my House colleagues with declarations that the ‘Florida Tech rocket was the best legislator gift of the session,’” Hodgers said after distributing the rockets. “After touring campus and meeting super-talented students, I knew Florida Tech could create my gift idea representing the best of the Space Coast.”
Enter Zac Schardt ’23. A master’s student in mechanical engineering who works as lab manager for the College of Engineering and Science, he was enlisted to play a leading role in the project by Peter Zappala, L3Harris Student Design Center operations and projects director.
A prototype was needed, and in one of the first of myriad thoughtful decisions focused on the smallest details, Schardt realized the lower section needed to be long enough to fit “Florida Institute of Technology” on it.
Length aside, what would the rocket look like? In a nod to the traditional and the modern reflected in the project itself, Zappala, Schardt and Felix Gabriel, lab manager at the L3Harris Student Design Center, opted for a composite design based on launch vehicles from different eras: the Saturn 1B of 1966 inspired much of the body, and today’s Space Launch Systems influenced the design of the top.
The general design of the rocket settled, there were other considerations. An initial version of a three-color rocket would have taken too long to produce, so it was shifted to black-and-white. Also, 3D-printed bases did not end up looking as sharp as anodized aluminum bases cut by water jet, which also were faster to laser engrave. Win-win!
Yes, each rocket base was engraved with the name, title and district of the recipient. (That meant the team needed to determine the length of the longest name and title combination and scale the rest to those specs.)
Just before Christmas, the team fired up five 3D-printers at the L3Harris Student Design Center and began producing the rocket components. Different machines made different sections of the rocket as Gabriel, Schardt and Zappala all spent time over winter break at the design center to ensure the production was proceeding and to switch out materials.
As winter break and rocket production ended, hundreds and hundreds of components waited to be snapped together in a perfect fit just as they were designed to do. Call in the returning students!
“Lots of assembly happened on our return,” Schardt said.
On Jan. 16, just a month after the project was first discussed, Rep. Hodgers visited campus to inspect the rockets with Rob Salonen, associate vice president, government affairs and strategic partnerships, and then transported them to Tallahassee for distribution to his legislative colleagues.
In that brief window, the team behind the project and the students who helped all received a gift of their own: an amazing experience that boosted their practical knowledge about additive manufacturing using 3D printers.
“It was definitely a learning experience for all of us,” Schardt said.
