This project was conceived of and completed by a multi-year team of DigiPen computer engineers. In total, the team went through three major management changes, with my team leading the completed design and subsequent space launch.

The payload was designed to collect cosmic particle data during a sounding rocket launch, and would fit inside the small rectangular chassis seen above. Power and flight data were provided by Blue Origin, and certain flight events would trigger software interrupts, beginning the particle data collection.

The sensors in our payload were designed to detect secondary cosmic ray particles: namely muons, but also kaons, pions, and protons. 

The actual sensor tech used was a plastic scintillating material, which would convert energetic cosmic particles to visible photons as they pass through the block. These photons were then detected by a SiPM (Silicon Photomultiplier), generating a current which is then boosted, and fed into the microcontroller's ADCs.