For our rocket, we decided we want to make the tube ourselves. We will make it out of paper and glue, which will be spirally wrapped on a PVC pipe tube with a diameter of 1 inch, this will give our rocket body itself have a diameter of roughly a little over an inch. The length of the body will be 1.5 feet. We will keep our rocket under and around 150 grams. With these dimensions, we estimate our rocket to go a maximum height of 200 feet given that everything goes as planned. We plan on making it have white and red spiral stripes to give it the illusion of a barber’s pole. The fins will be put on the rocket at an angle, causing the rocket to spin and it is launched, further giving it the illusion of a barber’s pole. I had the idea about the red and white stripes, Zach had the idea to have the rocket spin. Together we decided that we wanted to make our own nose cone, rather than having they same one as other people. |
We didn't really have benchmarks for making the rocket but, we worked on one thing at a time. The first day we had to work was the day we chose to make the tube. Since we put extra glue on the outside to make it stronger, we let it dry for two days. After two days went by, we worked on the nose cone. We chose to make it out of balsa wood, so it would have a pointed shape. Next, we made the fins. We want the rocket to spin, so we had to cut the fins a certain way. We ended up not cutting them correctly and had to patch up the places we missed. After the fins were on, we painted the whole body. Originally we were going to paint red and white stripes on the rocket, but when another group did that design we chose to paint it purple and green. The rocket ended up having a purple body with green fins and a green nose cone. The next thing we made was the parachute. Making the parachute was really easy and only took us a few minutes to complete. To make the parachute we took a square section of the bio hazard bag and folded it multiple times and then cut it to get an octagon shape. After the parachute was made, we tied in the rip cord. The rip cord was fishing line and was attached to the nose cone and the top of the body. The last thing we made was the motor. We made it a black powder motor with a full core. After the motor was made, we were done with the rocket. |
When we launched the rocket it worked really well. We were so scared that it wasn't going to work but, it went higher than almost everybody else's rockets. The only things that didn't work were the nose cone and the parachute. The problem with the nose cone was that it came off almost immediately after it was launched. The parachute burned up when the ejection charge went off but, since our fins were curved, the rocket spun and glided down to the ground. We were really surprised when we got to the rocket because the only thing that broke was a small part of two fins. I'm really proud of this rocket because I put so much hard work into it.