Ready, Set… Launch Stand!

A few weeks ago, we shared how excited we were about our truss being delivered. Now, the fun of building it.

Throughout our interview with techdrawer this past Saturday, Nathan was hard at work assembling the launch stand that our truss will stand on. When our day with techdrawer came to a close, he convinced Dakota and Ben to run through the hoisting process with him.

You can see the launch stand in the photo below to the right of the blur-that-is-Nathan. It’s rectangular and made of steel.

The hoisting process involved several meters of cable, two steel structures, nineteen cinder blocks, three humans, one ladder, and three three-meter lengths of aluminum truss.

After bolting the lengths of truss together, we lifted it with an engine hoist and attempted to lever it up with cables and pulleys. The first attempt didn’t go so well. The truss ended up balanced on Dakota’s head while Ben, up the ladder, steadied it and Nathan retied it to the hoist with a complicated series of climbing knots

72 hours later, CPR tried once again. We had a modified launch stand, two more Mechanical Engineering majors, and better lighting to help this time. And were we successful? Well, Nathan’s smile in the picture above should answer that!