Arduino for the Rocketeer, Part 1

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Crimson Star

The Arduino is actually a specification for a series of small controller boards and the software that allows us to control them.  Among the first examples were the Arduino Mega, Arduino UNO, and the Arduino Nano.  These are still available, but many more varieties also exist.  Of these three, more tutorials have been created for the Arduino UNO; it is still the best one to learn as a beginner.

The best way to learn, is to buy a kit that comes with a variety of parts and a good tutorial.  I purchased “The Most Complete Starter Kit (UNO R3)” from Elegoo (on Amazon) and was not disappointed.  Just bored…

There are thirty-three lessons in the tutorial, but only a few are directly related to rocketry applications.  Eventually, you should do all of the lessons, but for now let’s build our own course with the lessons that lead towards our goal.

I’ve picked lessons from the Elegoo tutorial, version V1.0.18.11.22, but any version is fine.  Later versions have the same content, but the lesson numbers may be different so you need to look for similar titles.

1.  Get Arduino Running
These lessons get you up-and-running.  Don’t be intimidated; the tutorials are excellent and it is not likely that you will break anything!  Most tutorials explain the code required to run the specific lesson experiment.  Don’t understand it?  No problem, just use it, see the results, then move on to the next lesson.

Lesson 0:  Installing IDE
Lesson 1:  Add Libraries and Open Serial Monitor
Lesson 2:  Blink

2.  Connect to Stuff
Now it is time to connect various simple devices to your Arduino.  Each one hooks up a little differently, so pay attention to the circuit schematics.  The what?  Here’s a nice and easy intro to get you started:  https://www.circuitbasics.com/how-to-read-schematics/

Lesson 3:  LED
Lesson 4:  RGB LED
Lesson 5:  Digital Inputs
Lesson 6:  Active Buzzer

3.  Connect to Good Stuff
You’ve learned to operate simple stuff that might be used in a rocket or in ground support, but mostly in a trivial way.  Now you move up to more exciting things, after which you will be ready for more specialized devices.

Lesson 12:  DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Sensor
Lesson 16:  GY-521 Module
Lesson 19:  Real Time Clock Module
Lesson 22:  LCD Display
Lesson 23:  Thermometer
Lesson 24:  Eight LED with 74HC595
Lesson 25:  The Serial Monitor
Lesson 26:  Photocell
Lesson 27:  74HC595 and Segment Display
Lesson 29:  DC Motors
Lesson 30:  Relay

4.  Optional Stuff
Although you are now ready to build “real” rocket stuff, you will need to buy special components not included in this kit.  While you are waiting for delivery (or your next paycheck), these lessons might provide you with more options for your ground support projects.

Lesson 8:  Tilt Ball Switch
Lesson 9:  Servo
Lesson 11:  Membrane Switch Module
Lesson 15:  MAX7219 LED Dot Matrix Module
Lesson 28:  Four Digital Seven Segment Display
Lesson 31:  Stepper Motor
Lesson 33:  Controlling Stepper Motor with Rotary Encoder

5.  Stuff You Skipped
Suffering the “rainy-day blues”?  Try these lessons – you paid for them!

Lesson 7:  Passive Buzzer
Lesson 10:  Ultrasonic Sensor Module
Lesson 13:  Analog Joystick Module
Lesson 14:  IR Receiver Module
Lesson 17:  HC-SR501 PIR Sensor
Lesson 18:  Water Level Detection Sensor Module
Lesson 20:  Sound Sensor Module
Lesson 21:  RC522 RFID Module
Lesson 32:  Controlling Stepper Motor with Remote

6.  Stuff You Don’t Need
Elegoo also sells a “37 Sensor Kit” that has each device installed on a mounting board, similar to the way Sparkfun markets their stuff.  You would still need a breadboard to connect things, so what’s the point?  Most of the devices in this kit are included in the Arduino UNO kit that you already own.  Save your money for the really good stuff that can go into your projects!

7.  Stuff You Might Need, if You Stretch the Truth…
It might be convenient to use a plug-in board that attaches to the top of the Arduino.  These allow you to assemble a few components and/or include new items.  I have a DS1307 Data Logger/Recorder and also a Multi-Function Expansion Shield, both from DiyBox Electronic, on eBay.  DO NOT visit their storefront unless you “possess an iron will.”

8.  Where to Go
The short answer – anywhere on the Internet!  Everybody (and their dog) has posted Arduino projects online.  Quite a few don’t work.  Many require really good stuff you haven’t bought yet, while others require really expensive stuff that you shouldn’t buy until your mortgage is paid off and your children have all graduated from university and left home.

But wait – here’s a countdown timer you can build using only some things from the UNO R3 kit you have been using:  https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/arduino-countdown-timer

Here’s another countdown timer, but with no interface:  https://www.circuitspecialists.com/blog/arduino-prototyping-countdown-timer/

Enhance Lesson 28 by adding the RTC:  https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/arduino-7-segment-display-clock

Combine Lessons 22, 23, and 30 as shown here:  https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/temperature-controlled-home-appliances-using-arduino-thermistor

Stay tuned for Part 2…

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2025 Highlights

Posted on December 16, 2025 by Crimson Star

This was not a good year for rocketry in Alberta. Most of the high-power launch events were cancelled due to fire restrictions; one was cancelled because of a big snowstorm.

The Edmonton Rocketry Club held a model rocketry launch at Calmar, on March 23rd. There was a nice turnout, and it was a sunny day. I launched my Ceres B2, flying on an Estes D12 motor. This was a simple test flight to about 300 ft, to see how well the 3d-printed parts would hold together. They didn’t!

Ceres B2 on #3

The lower section of the rocket (“fin-can”) consisted of a tapered body tube, fins, motor mount, a clever motor retention method, and a built-in baffle. All of those parts were printed from PLA, which had worked well for me on previous rockets.

The Ceres B2 ignited properly but tipped slightly into the wind, due to the small area of the little fins. Flight was normal until apogee; when the ejection charge fired, the baffle exploded and the fin-can tumbled back on its own. The parachute did not eject, so the main rocket floated down and crash-landed with almost no damage.

Up, Up, and KaBoom!

Inspection of the fin-can showed that the baffle had partially melted; one of the fin tips had broken off on landing. If there is ever a Ceres B3, it will not use a PLA baffle and it will have proper-sized fins!

Later in the year, the Calmar launch site was plowed under to become a canola field! This was unexpected, but the site was renamed Cape Canola.

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3D Printing: Getting Started

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Crimson Star

Christmas is fast approaching, and you might hope Santa will bring you a 3D printer. If you are new to 3D printing, read on.

Select your printer based upon your needs, budget, and willingness to spend uncountable hours fine-tuning the thing so it will actually print parts that fit together. If your final list contains a Dremel 3D20, then just shoot yourself in the head now and avoid years of frustration! Many books recommend a Creality Ender, and explain how to set it up and fine-tune it to get the best results possible, no ammunition needed.

I wanted to print custom parts for my rockets without spending too much money. I got my Dremel 3D20 “for free” by using up enough Airmiles for a round-trip ticket to Europe! I fought with it for several years, getting advice online that proved useless. Eventually, I found a book that helped me to setup my printer so that it printed well enough that I didn’t need to use any of those special words that I learned in the Army! The Dremel did not enjoy being told what to do, and self-destructed shortly thereafter. I still have the book, and I still consult it often. It is “Simplifying 3D Printing with OpenSCAD,” by Colin Dow, and is available from Amazon. Chapter 9 teaches you how to design and print rocket parts.

Once you have a 3D printer and understand how to use it, where can you get designs to print? Most people go to Thingiverse on the Internet, but there are dozens of big sites. Problem is, most of the prints are garbage. Some won’t slice, some won’t print, some won’t fit. Find Jamie Claye’s site on Thingiverse; he knows what he’s doing!

Sooner of later you will need to design your own part. OpenSCAD is free software. You use it to design parts by “coding” commands and parameters. Once you have the code for a BT60 nosecone, you can change the numbers within the parameters to immediately generate a nosecone of any size. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need to be a computer programmer to work with OpenSCAD. The “coding” that you will learn and use is not real computer programming – in fact, it would drive a real programmer mad if he tried to make it flow properly! So how do you learn OpenSCAD? Duh, remember that Colin Dow book?

That’s it! Currently, I use the Dremel as a foot-stool in my workshop. 3D printing is done on my Creality K1 Max, which is a great printer, but not for beginners. I still refer back to Colin Dow’s book on a regular basis. Merry Christmas!

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Fire & Ice 2025

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Crimson Star

The weather forecast leading up to Fire & Ice was not good: lots of snow, too much wind, and much too cold. The original date was rescheduled to February 22, 2025. Hosted by the Edmonton Rocketry Club, this was the first high-power launch in Alberta for 2025, and you could not have asked for a better day!

2-Stage Romulus on right (photo by David Bossak)

First, the bad news: I didn’t fly my Journey 98. It was ready to go, but unassembled. Got it inspected and signed off. Assembled it and the GPS immediately died! A very helpful rocketeer removed the batteries from his own GPS receiver and loaned them to me, but that didn’t solve the problem. The actual GPS transmitter, that rides in the rocket, was not “field accessible” for repairs. I could have launched the rocket anyway, testing my L4 altimeter bay electronics and dual deployment system, but I might have lost the rocket. Also, motors are expensive and in very limited supply these days. Better to save it for Hanna 2025!

Now, the good news: “Plan B” was to fire my Romulus 2-stage model rocket, just for fun. This was its second flight and all went well. The 1st stage motor was an Estes C6-0, and the 2nd stage motor was an Estes C6-5. It reached an altitude of about 880 ft, and landed not too far away on the frozen lake. Even so, the snow cover on the ice was knee-deep, so after a few steps I gave up and let the “rocket rescue” team fetch it for me! I’m not getting any younger, you know…

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2024 Highlights

Posted on February 25, 2025 by Crimson Star

2024 was a busy year. I built five fiberglass rockets, each one seeming to present different challenges. Finally started to get some good results with one of my GPS trackers, and upgraded to a Creality K1 3d-printer better able to produce rocket parts than my very old Dremel 3D20.

The Darkstar Mini from Wildman is a 1.6″ diameter rocket with a 29mm motor mount. It flies great on “F” model rocket engines, but would vanish with a high-power rocket. I do have the optional dual deployment kit for it, and hope to tackle that in 2025.

My Arcas from Madcow is a 2.6″ diameter rocket with a 38mm motor mount. It also performs well on “G” model rocket engines, but in 2025 it should fly to about a mile high on a J94 engine.

The Avalanche 3 from Madcow is a 3.0″ diameter rocket with a 54mm motor mount. Strictly a high-power flyer, it did well on its maiden flight and I am looking to reach about 6500 ft with it in 2025, powered by a J140.

Journey 98
Pandora

My most recent fiberglass build is a Journey 98 from Wildman. It is 4.0″ in diameter with a 54mm motor mount, and I plan to use it at Fire & Ice 2025 to test the electronics and recovery components from my L4 rocket.

Most of 2024 was spent building my L4 rocket: a DX3 XL from Madcow. This fiberglass rocket is 4.0″ diameter and has a 75mm motor mount. It required quite a few modifications, lots of money, plenty of swear words, more money, additional modifications, and a wide variety of components that could not be sourced from a single supplier. I’m not even going to mention all the paperwork that CAR requires!

I was going to name my L4 rocket “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” but decided it was nothing to sing about. It is called Pandora. It has been approved for its certification flight, which was going to happen in 2024 at Rock Lake on September 20th (my 77th birthday!), but the launch was cancelled. Fall Fire 2024 was a possibility, but they reluctantly declined since the flight was at the edge of their comfort zone. I won’t be able to try at Fire & Ice 2025 because their ceiling is 10,000 ft and Pandora thinks she’s going to over 14,000 ft, just hitting Mach 1 in the process.

Hydra Sandhawk
TTV

Besides these fiberglass rockets, I have built two more, 2-stage rockets. The Hydra Sandhawk from Rocketarium has a BT60 airframe. The booster has an 18mm motor mount, while the sustainer has a 24mm motor mount. The construction is somewhat similar to the smaller Romulus that I built previously. The maximum altitude is only about 1500 ft, so I can fly it in Calmar without any problems.

The second rocket is a TTV from Apogee. It is also BT60-based, but is intended for motors that use composite propellants, instead of the black powder used by most model rocket engines. Composite motors require an igniter in the upper stage motor, which means there must be an electronics bay that can fire the ignitor at the right time. This rocket was designed by Apogee as a “timer test vehicle” to get people comfortable with the technique before going on to high-power, multi-stage rockets.

This rocket is complete, but awaiting paint. I have the “Simple Timer” from Apogee that fits this rocket, and look forward to launching in Calmar, in 2025.

In 2024, I built seven new rockets, attended eight rocket launch events, and actually launched thirteen times! Not me, the rockets…

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