{"id":187085,"date":"2022-07-06T07:15:41","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T11:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=187085"},"modified":"2023-05-11T15:44:50","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T19:44:50","slug":"rocket-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2022\/07\/rocket-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Science, Toothpaste, and Determination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hritish Bhargava \u201923 (ENG) clearly remembers a particular day when he was in middle school and his teacher turned on a SpaceX<\/a> rocket launch for the class to watch.<\/p>\n

The then-eighth grader was captivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just so energetic \u2013 I was like, \u2018This thing is going so fast, imagine if there were people on there, going to space,\u201d he says. \u201cThat feeling was like, whoa. I want to build one of those things. That\u2019s so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial fascination sparked by that launch turned into a hobby for Bhargava, who began building high-powered rockets when he was in high school. In the ninth grade, he built a rocket powered by toothpaste for an honors physics class that fueled not only the rocket itself but also his growing interest in propulsion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to create a new type of propellant, and toothpaste has potassium nitrate in it, so I just exploited that,\u201d he explains. \u201cMost of the propellant that I made just had toothpaste in it, and then I launched that. Building a rocket itself was straightforward for me. I could design that on CAD and just print it or build it, whatever, that was fine. It was the propulsion \u2013 the different types of engines that are there, and how the chemistry works \u2013 that was interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bhargava, who was born in India and lived in various parts of the world throughout his childhood before his family settled in Shelton, originally thought he wanted to be an astronaut.<\/p>\n

But in the process of blowing up toothpaste \u2013 and learning more and more about the science and mathematics behind rocketry \u2013 he found he was more interested in putting things into space, as opposed to actually going there himself.<\/p>\n

That goal of putting things into space \u2013 as well as a newfound entrepreneurial spirit \u2013 has come to define the rising senior\u2019s time at UConn, where he unexpectedly found a growing community of faculty engaged in space-related work and fellow students with a shared interest in space technology.<\/p>\n

Originally a physics major, Bhargava found the math-intensive program lacked the sort of hands-on engineering that had marked his rocket building. He switched to UConn\u2019s engineering physics<\/a> program \u2013 offering him experience with both \u2013 but he admits that amidst the transition from high school to college, and the discovery of new communities with which he could relate at UConn, he lost his engineering passion in his first year at the University.<\/p>\n

‘I had to change my work ethic completely’\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cComing to college, I had to change my work ethic completely, and there’s so many more people here that are similar to you in a lot of ways,\u201d he explains. \u201cMy graduating class only had two or three other South Asians. So coming here, it was a really big South Asian community, and all types of different communities. I got involved heavily socially and, in freshman year, I fell out of love with engineering. I started finding interest more in entrepreneurship, stuff where you can directly see the change you’re making.\u201d<\/p>\n

In pursuit of that entrepreneurial interest, Bhargava became involved with UConn\u2019s Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation<\/a> and was accepted into the inaugural cohort of the institute\u2019s Stamford Startup Studio<\/a>, an intensive entrepreneurial co-op based at UConn Stamford. It was through the Startup Studio that Bhargava rediscovered the joy he had always found in engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came back from that experience, and I’ve just been grinding hard ever since,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

When the opportunity arose, he jumped at the chance to join UConn\u2019s first-ever team to compete in the NASA BIG Idea Challenge<\/a>. Finalists in the challenge, Bhargava and his teammates are working this summer and into the fall semester to design a new modality for a lunar rover.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of building a rover or some robot is just so appealing to me,\u201d he says, \u201cfor both the innovation part, but also because I can apply everything I learned in class into the robot. It’s all physics and engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the rover design isn\u2019t the only space-related project Bhargava has been working on this summer. He\u2019s founded a new club at UConn called Space Tech, an offshoot of the Radio Electronics Club<\/a>. Through the club, he secured funding from both the School of Engineering and the Connecticut Space Grant Consortium for two student teams to participate in RockOn<\/a>, a program offered through the Colorado Space Grant Consortium where participants from around the country build a payload that is then launched into space on a rocket.<\/p>\n

In advance of this year\u2019s launch at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the Space Tech teams built out the circuitry of their payloads onto glass plates, which on June 24 spent about five minutes in space aboard a Terrier Improved Orion sounding rocket<\/a> before returning to Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor those five minutes, you can measure what space is like \u2013 what the temperature is, how high did it go, atmospheric conditions, or whatever you want to measure up there,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt comes back down, then you can keep it, if you want to, and you can track it the entire way. So, it’s putting something in space, essentially, and that\u2019s just exciting for anybody who wants to do space stuff at UConn.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘NASA isn’t just composed of engineers. It’s composed of everybody’\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

While, for the moment, the club is just composed of the RockOn teams, Bhargava plans to start recruiting new Space Tech members in the fall semester, with a focus on finding students who have an interest in space and space-related competitions, regardless of their field of study.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace Tech is going to be more focused on the various competitions that involve either rockets or satellites,\u201d he says. \u201cNext semester, we want to expand into a space where we can talk to people that work at NASA and learn about related competitions \u2013 this club can become a hub where people can come and learn about it, and then start their own teams. And we don’t want just engineering people to join, too, because NASA isn’t just composed of engineers. It’s composed of everybody \u2013 you need everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

That interdisciplinary approach is also a hallmark of entrepreneurial opportunities at UConn, but it\u2019s not all that Bhargava has brought from entrepreneurship to his space technology endeavors. He\u2019s implemented \u201csprints\u201d \u2013 a technique he learned from the Stamford Startup Studio \u2013 for the students working on the mechanics of the challenge rover design.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I learned was project management \u2013 how project management works, how to work in teams, and how to work efficiently,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe did sprints all the time. In two weeks, you had to either have a deliverable or explain why this failed, and then start something new, which was awesome. That’s what I’m doing now with the NASA team. I’ve implemented sprints on the mechanics side. They do one-week sprints, and if it fails, we start on a new idea. If it doesn’t fail, then we just continue working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also continuing to pursue his own, Earth-centered entrepreneurial interests.<\/p>\n

‘I really want to accomplish my dreams’\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bhargava had worked on a startup concept for an AI-powered LED brake bar for cars, trucks, and other commercial vehicles with a few friends in high school. Now scattered on opposite sides of the country \u2013 some in Connecticut and others at the University of California, Berkeley \u2013 the friends revived their concept and launched their company, called Anzen, last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brake bar indicates your brake intensity to the driver behind you, and it has an AI camera, so it can exactly evaluate what happened,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe brake bar consists of 10 lights, and they\u2019ll work sequentially. If you brake lightly, only inner to lights will light up, and as you brake harder, all of them will light up. Right now, we’re tailoring it toward fleets. Instead of just having a black box, which is a current solution, they can have this device, which will increase safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their product uses its own independent sensor systems to measure brake intensity, which make it universally usable regardless of the year, make, or model of the vehicle. Bhargava says the AI integration may also have applications in the development and safety of autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there’s an instance where you break really hard, or if there\u2019s an accident, the camera will record a few seconds before that,\u201d he explains, \u201cand the reason that it\u2019s an AI camera, instead of a regular one, is so that it can model everything around what happened. That has future implications for autonomous vehicles, because the only thing electric vehicles really lack is data from behind the car. It’s all focused on the front and the sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Anzen team has already taken their concept through Traction and Accelerate UConn, two venture support programs offered through UConn\u2019s Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation<\/a>. They\u2019re currently building out product designs, with plans to conduct testing over the summer.<\/p>\n

Bhargava hopes to one day fulfill his dream of working for NASA. And if it seems like he has a lot going on as an undergraduate, that\u2019s because he does \u2013 but he said he hasn\u2019t always been the \u201cgo-getter\u201d type.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s new,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it’s a learned trait, and most of that credit goes to the Stamford Startup Studio, honestly. Because over time, being there, the more I’d put myself out there and do things, the better things got for me. I didn’t realize that before I was just chugging along, doing my own thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I don’t want to just graduate and do a static job. I really want to accomplish my dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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