Devlog 4: If I built my rocket using my CAD, it would nosedive straight into the ground…

Overview

Hey everybody! Rocket CAD is closing in on completion! I’m still missing some pretty important aerodynamic pieces, but I’ve been able to get some good work done that I’m here to tell you all about!

FlightScope

If you’re new here, this is the hardware side of my big summer project, FlightScope. You can find my work on the software side of FlightScope here: https://stardance.hackclub.com/projects/13462

What’s New

This week I made major progress on the rocket CAD.

The biggest improvement was on the FlightCore Avionics bay. The layout is much more finalized, as I’ve designed in for more stability and even added the power switch! Now I can actually turn this thing on, which is a nice step in the right direction

Beyond that, I’ve started fitting subassemblies together, getting a sense for packaging on the rocket. See some pictures of it at the bottom of the devlog :)

What’s Next

The biggest remaining task is designing the fins. Before I commit to a final shape, I’ll be running some simulations to find what allows for the best stability.

Conclusion

Thanks for making it this far!

If you’d like to follow along, check out the projects on GitHub or give me a follow!

FlightCore Repo: https://github.com/zombieking1555/FlightScope_FlightComputer

FlightScope Dashboard Repo: https://github.com/zombieking1555/FlightScope

Performance increases, and a rewrite of the parser!

Today was a nice easy day; I rewrote most of the parser, fixing a lot of bugs, and also learned how to use the performance analyzer in C++! The code is much more documented, with every line describing what it’s doing, making it super easy to follow along!


The main change was an increase in speed from about 5% CPU usage to 1% and a 50MB reduction in RAM usage, allowing for 10 tabs at once, with only 61MB overall, rather than the 1000MB of something like Chrome! as well as about a 6% faster parse and load time.

There is still a lot to optimize and work on, so I’ll keep doing that!

Updated the web version to the latest!

Ok, so the main thing i did today was update the web version, and got it to match the main version overall, with everything!

I also tried to get better formatting on the text, but i think my code is just so muddled its gonna be impossible, so my plan is to start rewriting it, with the things I’ve learned, and updating the comments (as i have a lot of them, in many wrong spaces)! that should take a bit, but hopefully will pay off in the future!


If you want to try the new version, its here:

https://k754a.hackclub.app/

Almost Done The Back Of My Rocket!

I Can’t Believe How Close I Really Am From Completing This Project. This Is All I Need To Do Before I Am Done:

• A quick fix to the wings of the space shuttle (this will probably take 10 minutes and then I will be done with the back of my rocket!

• Connect the fuel tanks to the rest of the build (They are hidden in this picture)

• Possibly fix one area on the front of my rocket (This Is Optional But Would Make The Rocket Look Much Better)

What I Did Since Last Devlog:

• I completely remade the vertical stabilizer (also called the tail fin) of the space shuttle

• Remade and angled the oms pods since they were completely wrong before

• Moved up the oms engine nozzles (The bell looking component on the rocket)

• Redesigned the RCS thruster ports (They are beside the OMS engine nozzles)

If you have any improvements that i could make to the space shuttle, please mention them in the comments!

Scroll bar support, bookmarks, and printing sites!

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Today I got a lot done; the main things were getting scrollbars, bookmarks, and getting sites to print all working!
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I ended up running into a lot of bugs (especially with the scroll bar), but now it works, so yeah!
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Currently the browser portion is far behind, and I want to update it, so I’ll try doing that next! Overall today was a good day; I got a lot done and a lot working!
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Anyways, thanks for reading!
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Code / Project

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You can check out the code here:
https://github.com/k754a/C-Plus-Plus-Web-Engine
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And try a older version of it:
https://k754a.hackclub.app/
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Lots of bug fixing on the engine! & Making it to the news letter!

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First of all, I want to thank everyone who has liked, reposted, and checked out my project. I made it to the Stardance newsletter, and it was so awesome :). Thank you so much!

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‎Today, I fixed a crazy amount of bugs; the main one was I would have these empty boxes, and it took me a good hour and a half to figure it out, but now text renders so much nicer!
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The next bug I fixed was clicking links. Up until this point, clicking links did not work at ALL, so now they work! (super happy about that)!
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History now works for each tab, not just one pool!
I’m also starting work on making a YT video for this project. I’ve never made one before, so we will see how it turns out.
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For tomorrow, I’m going to work on the formatting of the engine, as normal websites have text like how Stardance has the home, notifications, rate, missions, etc, on the side and the main text in the middle, so I’ll hopefully get that working!
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An‎yways, thanks for reading! You can check out my project below. :)

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Code / Project

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You can check out the code here:
https://github.com/k754a/C-Plus-Plus-Web-Engine
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And try a older version of it:
https://k754a.hackclub.app/
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Devlog 3 - Avionics Bay V2

Overview

Hey everybody! This cycle, I’ve shifted my focus from software to hardware. After getting FlightCore’s subsystem code into a good place, it was time to redesign the avionics bay around the actual components that will be flying.

FlightScope

If you’re new here, this is the hardware side of my big summer project, FlightScope. You can find my work on the software side of FlightScope here: https://stardance.hackclub.com/projects/13462

What’s New

This week I designed the second revision of the FlightCore avionics bay in Onshape. See it in the video at the bottom of the devlog!

The redesign includes:

• A much cleaner component layout.
• Mounting locations for every PCB.
• Better spacing for wiring and connectors.
• A compact sled that fits inside the avionics coupler while keeping everything accessible.

What’s Next

Now that the avionics bay design is mostly complete, the next step is to finish up the rest of the rocket CAD. Hopefully, I’ll also be ordering FlightCore avionics very soon so test-fit everything and begin validating the software on the actual hardware.

Conclusion

Thanks for making it this far! If you like what you see, check out the projects on GitHub or give me a follow!
FlightCore Repo: https://github.com/zombieking1555/FlightScope_FlightComputer
FlightScope Dashboard Repo: https://github.com/zombieking1555/FlightScope

Got Flex and Absolute boxes working on the engine!

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This took a while, just with fixing all the bugs and the weird reasons why some things would just not work at all lol! It was definitely a learning process for sure, and it should be easier to add more support for everything else in the future!
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This has to be one of the most difficult projects I’ve ever worked on, but it’s coming along! I want to do something a bit more fun, so my plan is to start work on a UI overall, just to give myself a break from all the crazy stuff!
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Anyways, thanks for reading!
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(oh‎, websites look so much nicer, with the new stuff!)

Devlog 2 - Software Progress

Overview

Hey everybody, I’ve been on vacation and haven’t been fully locked on Stardance, but I’ve still been able to get some work in that I would love to share with you all.

Flightscope

If you’re new here, this is the hardware side of my big summer project, Flightscope. Find my other work in this project.

What’s New

In this chunk of work. I have (for now) completed the subsystem code for FlightCore (my flight computer, powered by an RPi Pico 2). Here is a map of how the program works:

      ┌────────┐
      │ LiPo Battery │
      └────┬───┘
                      │
                     ▼
    ┌───── ───────┐
    │ Raspberry Pi Pico 2│
    └──────┬── ───┘
                          │
       ┌─────┼──────┐
      ▼              ▼                  ▼
┌───┐ ┌────┐ ┌─── ──┐
│ IMU  │ │ BMP  │ │ microSD│
│Accel│ │Altim. │ │ Logger   │
└─┬─┘ └─┬──┘ └──┬── ┘
      └── ──┼ ──────┘
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     Sample Sensors (200 Hz)
                       │
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     Pre-launch Ring Buffer
                       │
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     Launch Detection Logic
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      Flight State Machine
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     Boost → Coast → Descent
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       Write Flight CSV
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      FlightScope Dashboard
                       │
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  Graphs • 3D Replay • Analysis

Conclusion

Flightcore is making some great progress on the software side, and here’s a picture of the fun I’m having in Onshape designing the avionics sled! Look out for that in the next devlog. Thanks for getting this far! I would love to see what cool things you guys are working on too. Leave a comment, and I would love to check out your projects!

Edit: I apologize for the attachment spam, I can’t find the option to delete them.

Vega Devlog 4! I am done with designing the gimbal system with two rotational axis and next time will work on the base for this time I made inner cylinder with two tabs sticking out, its also the part that contains the rocket motor its diameter is 24.250 mm and the wall thickness is 2mm same thickness for outer cylinder it is 17 mm bigger in diameter than the inner cylinder it holds the inner cylinder allows it to rotate it also has two tabs for left and right motion! thats all for today up next is building up the base to attatch this to

Almost done the front of my rocket!

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After 3 Hours, I Was Able To Troubleshoot Many Errors and Finally I Was Able to Make The Front Of My Rocket Much More Realistic.

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I was finally able to add:
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• A realistic, smooth shape of the rocket that resulted in boosted realism
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• A more round shape to the body of the rocket- Realistic features of the rocket’s nose
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I also removed the sharp edges on the front of the rocket that ruined the rocket’s overall image.
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My next goals:
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• Working on the bottom of the rocket to add realistic color for AMS printing
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• Smoothing out the transition between the body and the engines (Right now they are really messed up and look terrible)
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• Adding realistic connections where the rocket attaches to the external tank (The tank is hidden in this image)

I was able to make the rocket look so much more realistic (Look at my other devlogs to see the before and after) and I’m so happy about how it turned out so far!
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So far, I have made amazing progress on this ambitious project and I can’t wait to finish this off.

Images Working for the Browser Engine!
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I’m going to be honest with you, this has to be the top 10 worst things I’ve ever coded. 😭😭 But images now can load; there are a few bugs, most images don’t load, and the ones that do load in pairs of 2 have weird bounding boxes.
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However, they do work, and that’s what I’m happy about!
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I’m going to do a quick side project, just to have a bit of room so I don’t overdo it, but overall it was good.
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Next I’ll just fix the bugs and start getting like the formatting of texts to start matching websites!
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The vid below shows them in action.

Back and forth arrows, reloading, better formatting, and searching on the browser!

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Today was huge; I was able to get better formatting for text, search for things, and get buttons like back and forth and reloading working!
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My next task to tackle is images!
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The vid below shows all of the changes in action!
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Thanks for reading!

Rebuilt part of the browser engine to handle tabs!

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Today, I worked on getting tabs working! It wasn’t as bad as I thought; the worst part was making all the UI elements and handling the inputs for them!
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I also found a bug; the engine easily uses my entire CPU’s dedicated GPU and causes issues with other apps lol, but I’ll fix it in a bit!
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Overall it was just bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and tabs!
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Hopefully tomorrow I’ll do images, then I’m taking a break for a bit and doing something else because I’m burnt out, and that’s a tip for all of you too: don’t overwork yourselves!

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The vid below shows it in action. Thanks for reading!
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Also, if you want to support the project, dropping a star on the GitHub would be awesome; no pressure, though. :)

https://github.com/k754a/C-Plus-Plus-Web-Engine

Finished the CAD model today!!! (for the most part)

• Corrected OpenRocket Model to include actual, in-stock components (which reminds me I need to start on a BOM)
• Translated OpenRocket Model into an OnShape Model ready for 3D Printing, although I need to buy PETG for the centering rings

I do feel as though the rocket is super long though, but I can’t find shorter Polycarbonate tubes at a reasonable price and good diameter! Also, I have to work on the recovery system tomorrow, as well as figuring out how I’m going to mount the fins (right now I have tabs but am not sure if that’s best practice for literal cardboard).

Links, and better rendering!

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Today I got links, and rendering improved rendering! Words now render together, rather than making a new line each time. I also got links, and that allows you to browse something like Wikipedia (the video below) much easier!
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For next time, I’m going to get the back and forward arrow and reload a working website! And may start work on getting the browser to have divs!
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Thanks for reading!

Devlog 1 - Welcome To FlightCore

Overview

What’s up, guys! If you have been following my other project, FlightScope, the name of this project will ring a bell. This is the hardware extension for FlightScope, so I can get real data and actually test the app.

What am I actually building?

FlightCore has 2 main parts:

• The Flight Computer, which is what is going to collect the flight data and will be housed inside number 2….
• A Rocket! I’ll be building a (most likely) low-power rocket that will bring FlightCore up into the sky.

With all that out of the way, I’ll tell you what I’ve got done in this first chunk of time.

What’s New

• Began modeling the electronics sled and other rocket parts with Onshape
• Initialized FlightCores codebase with sensor initialization. P.S. - The GitHub is public! I’ll be storing everything about this project right here.

Challenges

This project is full of challenges! To name a few:

• This is my first hardware project, and putting all the electronics I plan to use together is going to be a big one in itself.
• I haven’t ever used CAD software before (I apologize if my CAD is horrendous. I’m trying, I promise), so modeling everything in Onshape is fun!
• I’m programming the flight computer with new libraries that are brand new to me, not to mention using C++, which is also something I haven’t used yet.

I’m basically jumping off a helicopter into an ocean without knowing how to swim, but the great part about it is I sure will learn a lot and fast!

Next Steps

• Program up the other sensors in the flight computer
• Figure out how I’m actually going to log the data that these sensors are giving me
• Continue modeling the rocket and electronics sled in CAD

And that’s a wrap for devlog 1! As I’ve said, this project really does have me learning along the way. Any advice would be much appreciated! With that said, I’ll see you all in the next one.

See progress on the electronics sled:

Ok, this is the first push for my project, Sudo to actual code!

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I was trying to code an AI compiler, but AI really sucks at compiling things, but it gave me the idea that I could make a VS Code extension that helps you code faster by writing pseudocode for some functions and then getting it translated to real code using context from the rest of your functions.
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It would help you learn while not slowing you down! You still learn by still writing what you want to do, but the AI changes it so you can see how your idea converted to real code!
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Today was kind of basic; I just worked for about 45 mins trying to fix my Ollama install, then the rest trying and debugging things! I’m going to very much improve this to be much better, as the extension doesn’t really do anything currently!

Devlog 6 - Flight Comparison Dashboard!

Overview

In this cycle, I expanded FlightScope’s analysis capabilities with a new Flight Comparison Dashboard! Now, users can load in two flights at the same time, comparing trajectories and detected flight events side-by-side. These additions make it endlessly easier to analyze design changes, motor selections, and overall flight performance across multiple launches.

What’s New

• Added a dedicated Flight Comparison Dashboard.

• Implemented dual-flight visualization for altitude, velocity, and orientation telemetry.

• Added automatic launch detection and time normalization so flights can be compared from liftoff.

• Implemented automatic event detection for:

  • Motor burnout
  • Apogee
  • Parachute deployment
  • Landing

• Added event markers directly onto comparison graphs.

• Added a Comparison Summary table displaying key event timestamps for both flights side-by-side.

• Improved dashboard responsiveness by moving admin sidebar initialization outside of rendering bottlenecks.

• Updated docs and README! By the way, FlightScope is fully public on GitHub, go check it out :)

Challenges

The challenge this time around was making sure the flight comparison dashboard was actually useful, so I spent some time designing features such as time normalization and side-by-side data viewing to make it very clear to the user where flight differences were present.

Next Steps

• Improve flight render with trajectory path
• Expand visualization tools with synchronized playback and side-by-side flight rendering.

So much progress is being made on this funny little program, I’m so very pleased with how FlightScope is coming along! That’s all for now, folks. See you in #7!

The browser now has a GUI!

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This took a bit and a few tutorials, but now you’re able to browse the web with no styles, one font, and just things like headers, but for now this is super awesome!
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I’ve been going pretty hard at it the last few days, and I lowkey need a break, or else I’m gonna get super burnt out, so I might just start a side project for the fun of it, something easy when I’m feeling a bit sluggish.
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When I come back, I’ll work on adding a UI around the browser (to get fully away from the terminal), and then it’s just getting CSS parsed and working, which isn’t too bad at all.
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You can check out the code and try the project below.

C++ Browser Engine

You can try it online! : https://k754a.hackclub.app/

Source code: https://github.com/k754a/C-Plus-Plus-Web-Engine