Hybrid Rocket Engine @ VCU

In my senior year of college, I took it upon myself to dive into rocket propulsion and engine design—something we didn’t cover much in class. After a lot of late nights and digging through textbooks and research papers, I put together a small team of four and we set out to design a hybrid rocket engine from the ground up. I led the effort across system design, component modeling, and building out a custom data acquisition setup to support static fire testing. Once the design was solid, I started machining the engine parts by hand using manual tools in our shop. It was a hands-on, ground-up project that blended theory, teamwork, and fabrication—exactly the kind of challenge I love.