Payload
The experiment we fly, and most years the reason the rocket exists at all. CAD, electrical and software all sit on it.
Payload designs, builds, and integrates the experiment or technical demonstration the rocket carries each year, most years the reason the rocket flies at all. It sits alongside Airframe, which has to make the payload fit and survive flight, and Avionics, which handles triggering over the CAN bus. Recent payloads: Magpie (2026), an SRAD fracture test module carrying epoxy test articles to measure how a self-healing polymer performs in flight, which took first place in the Payload Challenge at Launch Canada; Sparrow (2025), a 360-degree camera with a recovery beacon that also took first place at Launch Canada; and a 2024 first-person-view camera system recording flight at 2K and 60 frames per second.
First year
Help build and test one part of the current payload, whether that's the mechanical housing, the electronics, or the software that runs it. The payload changes every year, so the first project you touch is whatever that season's experiment needs.
Useful, not required
Depends on the year's payload: CAD and machining for the housing, embedded C for the electronics, or materials science for an experiment like Magpie's polymer test. No single background is required.
About 6 h / week
What we've flown.
Sparrow
A 360-degree camera paired with a recovery beacon, flown on Nimbus. Won first place in the Payload Challenge at Launch Canada 2025.
Magpie
McMaster Rocketry's first scientific payload: an SRAD fracture-test module that flew on Osiris to test how a self-healing polymer performs under real flight loads.
Every other subteam.
Each one takes members with no experience every term.
Airframe
Structures and aerodynamics: simulation, analysis, CAD and machining. The airframe has to survive peak loading and come back straight.
Avionics
Flight computers and telemetry: embedded firmware and PCB design in KiCad. This subteam decides when every event on the flight fires.
Composites
Carbon and fibreglass layup, tooling, and the finishing that makes it fly straight.
Operations
Graphic design, merch, and social media. What people see when they have never set foot in the shop.
Propulsion
Motor integration, thrust curves, and Icarus: our in-house hybrid engine in development alongside the commercial motors we fly today.
Recovery
Dual-deployment parachutes and the sequencing that brings the vehicle back intact.
Who runs it.
Named leads, so you know who to ask.
We hire first years.
We hire people who have never touched a rocket. Come ready to learn. We'll teach the rest.
Find us at Facultyfest on August 31, 12:30 to 17:00, or Clubsfest on September 14, 16:30 to 19:30 on the JHE field. Applications close September 18. You don't need to be an engineer: we need people on operations as much as on airframe.