student who designed amateur solid rocket propellant at the University
ofNigeria, Nsukka.
Are you one of those worried that our universities do not produce
researchers and innovators anymore? Maybe you have lost hope that
nothing good will ever come out of our ivory towers again,and because
of that, are making plans to send your children abroad for higher
education.
There is hope. The indomitable spirit and ingenuity of Nigerians that
were on display during Nigerian Civil War when Biafrans produced
"shore batteries" rockets, "ogbunigwe" (the dread masskiller) and
other war arsenalsare still present with us. This was in evidence,
recently, during projects defense organized by the Department of
Physics and Astronomy, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.A 20-year-old of
the department called Idoko Modestus Chijioke stunned the panel of
assessors when he presented an amateur solid rocket propellant as his
own project. His lecturers not only marveled at his ingenuity, his
supervisor, Dr. J. A. Alhassan, was so proud of him that he called on
the federal government to assist the young genius to achieve the best
so as to conquer his world.
The amateur rocket has PVC-pipe as the motor casing,aluminum as the
nose cone,½-inch pvc-cover, aluminum and a ½-inch diameter pipe as the
nozzle. The propellant is made up of 325 grams of potassium nitrate
(oxidizer) and 175 grams of sorbitol (sugar), making a total of 500
grams. The PVC-pipe is of¾-inch diameter, and 65cm inlength. The
rocket motor igniter is a mixture of potassium nitrate and charcoal at
80/20 ratio, to form it into a black powder (gun powder).
Amateur rocketry is also known as experimental rocketry. The project
design objective according to Chijioke and to test the workability of
a potassium nitrate (oxidizer) and sorbitol (fuel) blended into a
KN-SB propellant for the amateur rocket made with local materials. The
rocket which was launched successfully on one of the hill-tops behind
theuniversity attained an estimated height of 35m in flight.
In a chance encounter with this reporter, Chijioke shed more light on
how he came up with the idea for the project.
"I came up with this project because of a childhood dream of being a
rocket scientist," he said, "and this particularlyled me into the
Department of Physics and Astronomy, of UNN, to get a good grasp of
the physics/science of rockets and an understandingof astronomy for
which rocketis basically built".
Asked what challenges he encountered in the course of carrying out the
project, the soft spoken young man said he cannot point to any because
according to him, "life is all about challenges but with focus and
determination, success will surely come".
"Some people around me thought this was not possible," he added. "But
thisonly made me determined to prove them wrong. The other challenges
were normal in amateur rocketry as several trials were made and
several failures recorded. But at last the design objective was
obtained. I have dreams and tall ambitions. One of them is to be in
space one day. I only pray that my dreams will get support both from
government and well meaning individuals so that they will
beactualized".
In a chat with Education Review, Alhassan, his project supervisor,
said that, through his project, young Chijioke has demystified
science.
"The solid rocket propellant constructed by Idoko Chijioke,though an
adaptation of an amateur astronomer experiments, is original. He
fabricated the rocket from locally available materials from our
environment. Whenever we hear of rockets, our minds by reflex action
go to the technologically advanced world. Chijoke has
demystifiedscience by his effort. If he is properly motivated and
equipped, he can break the ice in scientific world. There ishope for
Nigeria's national transformation if we can support and fund
scientific innovations like my student has done" he said.
Culled from http://www.unn.edu.ng/news/unn-student-develops-amateur-rocket-propellant
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