Final Rocket Launch

The RRR won the final competition. Our rocket went 538.4 ft. Our rocket cleared the first half of the track. There might be a best of the best competition tomorrow Friday, July 1st. If there is, hopefully we will win the distance competition.

Final Project - Movie

Here is our final video. Hope you earn something about building rockets!

Today me and ricky started our final project. We decided to do a video. We decided not to launch our rocket today because we thought it had reached its maximum distance.

Design and Construction

Today our rocket went 152m instead of 100m. We have decided that adding a little more weight to the rocket increased its distance by a lot. Next time we will add more clay to the nose and see what happens......

Design and Construction

Today me and Ricky added a nose cone to our rocket. We made it out of another bottle's top half and cut of the bottle cap area so we could put clay there to seal it and add weight to it at the same time. Later, we launched it and it went approximately 100m. Afterwards we decided to add more clay to the nose cone to more momentum and see if it would go farther. We will being testing this theory tomorrow in class.

Design and Construction

Today Ricky and I started to build our rocket. We attached fins. Also we made our blueprint for our design. Sometime today Ricky should be posting our blueprint on the blog.

5:50 (Updated Post)


This is the current blueprint. Not much is on it, so the following bullet points will demonstrate the purposes.

• The parabola cone will bring the least amount of drag. Currently we are aiming for a 3-4 inch cone in height with the same diameter as the bottle.
• The "teardrop" body is designed aerodynamically and will also carry less chance for drag. The diameter is about 38 cm and curves into a 9.5 cm end.
• Our fins (there are 3) are made to fit the curved part of our body. The fins are made of thick cardboard and are placed at the lowest spot possible on the body for stabilization and lowering the center of gravity.
• We have a rough estimate on our water amount. We want to have a little more than 1/3 of the bodys' volume filled with water: more will weigh it down and less will give it less "liquid fuel".
• Our design is still in the making but when we are finished, the R.R.R. will be a huge success in height and distance.

Fins

• The fins should be sturdy.
• The fins shouldn't be too big for the rocket.
• The fins should be aligned properly with the others.
• The fins should have a trianglish cross-section .



• The fins should be as far back on the rocket as possible.

We need to make the body as aerodynamic as possible and have enough mass for stabilization. Also, we should fill the bottle up to 1/3 of its volume with water. Maybe we shouldn't use water...possibly a less dense liquid. However, Ms. Cheney said it couldn't be fully a different liquid, so it'll have to be a mixture of both. Any ideas for the liquid?

-Ricky

Nose cones with rounded tops produce the least amount of drag. The best nose cone has a paraolic shape as shown in the graph below.

-Robert Hoffman

Report:
I have noticed that the different bottle sizes really do matter. A 2L bottle will use/need more force to push it as high as a 1L bottle. However, a skinnier bottle (1L) has a more aerodynamic structure and has less drag.
                                    

                                                                                                       -Ricky Krause